


shadowplay

by acroamatica



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Modern AU, depictions and descriptions of abuse, depictions of coerced consent to non-sexual intimacy, depictions of violence (not super graphic), heavy metal will save the world, musician au, nothing - the answer is nothing, what can't be improved with loud guitars, who IS that masked man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-11 03:31:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10454004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acroamatica/pseuds/acroamatica
Summary: Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fuckingsignhim.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for brawlite, who always says the right thing, most especially "YES YOU SHOULD WRITE THAT". <3
> 
> hi, new fandom. sorry in advance, new fandom. i... do this.

Graves has a headache.

To be fair, he’s had a headache nearly constantly since about 1986, and more importantly, since he woke up this morning. He’s probably fucked up his neck again, he thinks. Headbanging for a decade straight hasn’t done him any favours at 40. But you don’t think about that when you’re 25 and have long hair and a lot of feelings.

Some headaches are massage headaches - he’s got a place near the office that does things in twenty minutes that feel like they give him back ten years of his life. Others are nap headaches, or fresh air headaches, or even painkiller headaches.

This one is a whiskey headache.

He blames Tina. It would have stayed an aspirin headache at worst if not for that awful Barebone woman that she’d insisted he have a meeting with, even though he’d told her he didn’t have the slightest interest in signing New Salem to anything.

But of course, there’d been special pleading. Somehow there always was. Tina knew he was weak to her when she was genuinely upset about something. So she’d brought him the New Salem CD - formerly the New Salem Song Troupe, he’d discovered in the liner notes, and didn’t they just sound exactly the way they looked. Three well-scrubbed kids, smiling like mannequins. One girl on keys who sings lead, one girl on drums, one boy with a generic Les Paul clone slung around his slightly hunched shoulders, as though he’d tried to look a little more like a rock star but didn’t really know how to unbend. Some Partridge Family bullshit, and not even good Partridge Family bullshit.

“You know I don’t do sunshine and rainbows, Goldstein,” he’d told her. “I’m on a strict quota of destruction and chaos. Sera would think I’d lost my mind. Can’t _you_ sign them yourself?”

The look on Tina’s face, mingled embarrassment and sorrow, had answered the question well enough. “It’s complicated.” She’d pushed her hair back, one of her stress tells. “They’re signed with Henry Shaw over at Worldwide.”

Graves had made a face. “Junior or Senior?”

“Junior.”

That was worse news. Senior’s a sly old ratbag; Junior’s a smarmy, slimy L.A. native who writes the second worst contracts in the business. Graves hates them both, but it’s Junior he’d most gladly deck.

He knows Tina knows this. And she’d looked at him, knowing this, and explained: “They want out of their contract. Junior’s said yes, but they owe three albums, so someone has to buy them out. Picquery won’t let me play with that kind of money. But it’s awful, what he’s doing to them. They’re earning nothing, I don’t know what they live on after taxes. Pennies. Those kids are wearing thrifted clothes and eating ramen. It’s not _right_ , Graves.”

He’d sighed. “I suppose you have their manager’s contact details. Hand them over.”

He is a _good_ A &R guy, that’s the problem. And despite everything, he likes Tina Goldstein and her bleeding heart. So he’d called Mary Lou Barebone, clearly and obviously the leader of the well-scrubbed pack, and invited her in, even though she’d set his teeth on edge just on the phone.

The less said about her, the better. Graves doesn’t have anything against women with strong personalities. Sera Picquery would have cured him of it if he did. Still, there is a point at which strong becomes grating, and grating becomes truly abrasive, and he has an instinctive mistrust of momagers, especially ambitious ones. Mary Lou Barebone is enough to take a layer of skin off Graves’ soul. He’d spent a good couple of minutes of their meeting imagining her in the ring with either of the Shaws, before deciding maybe somehow the Shaw brand of charm worked better on her than his. She certainly didn’t like _him_ enough to ever sign a five-album deal.

The real dealbreaker was still the music, though. She hadn’t liked hearing that. Gave Graves a speech about “family values” that had featured the word _wholesome_ no less than five times. 

He hates the word _wholesome_. Oatmeal is wholesome. It’s also bland, and boring, and awful and stodgy and grey, and tastes like sadness. He’d rather, for his own part, be anything but _wholesome_.

That much he’d certainly managed for himself. He has no doubt of what she’d think if she knew the slightest bit about the past of Mr P Graves, A&R exec for MaC USA. Just to watch her face, he half-wishes he’d introduced himself as Vaal Graves from Deviltomb. She’d probably picketed one of his shows in the Eighties. She seems the type.

So Graves has not signed New Salem, though he left the meeting with an option to give it some more thought, and now Tina is mad at him but refuses to talk to him about it, and he has one of the godawful chirpy Barebone kids’ songs stuck in his head to the point where he’s caught himself hum-singing _sweet summer sunshine, shine down on me_ under his breath. It’s an insult to his dignity and his taste in music, both of which are better than this. 

If he didn’t have the headache, he thinks he could probably have gone somewhere good to drink tonight. Graves has a strict hierarchy of bars, based mostly on how likely he is to be recognised as anything more than _Mr Graves, the regular who tips well_. He thinks about a too-friendly Hollywood smile and open arms, _Vaaaaaal! Come in, sit down, we got your favourite,_ and it’s always a shot of Jack they slide in front of him, and he hasn’t liked Jack since that weekend in ‘92, and he just can’t tonight. At least here, the carpet may be sticky and the whiskey may be shit but it’s not Jack and he’s not Vaal, or Val, or Perce, or anything but _Graves_. It’s worth the trade-off.

“You working tonight?” the bartender says gruffly, as he pours Graves’ drink without asking.

“I’ve done enough,” Graves says. “That’s why the whiskey.”

Jeff shrugs. “That’s your business, man. It’s a day that ends in y, you can have a drink if you want.” He hands Graves his glass on a napkin. “I just wondered ‘cause of the act we got on tonight. Thought maybe you heard about him.”

Graves raises an eyebrow. “Should I have?”

“I hadn’t, til he showed up here one open mic night. But you might like him. I dunno.”

Someone else waves Jeff down for a refill, and Graves gulps at his whiskey, even though it isn’t any more pleasant that way. He just wants it to work. And maybe this act can get the damn sunshine song out of his head.

He puts them out of his mind for the space of two more whiskeys, and has almost forgotten about them completely when there’s the sound of someone tapping a finger on a live mic, behind him.

“Hi,” a hoarse voice says. “We’re Obscurus. Thanks.”

A soft electrical hum. Jeff nods significantly at Graves; he doesn’t roll his eyes, but he pours the last of his whiskey into his mouth and signals for another before he’s even swallowed. It tastes a lot better after three of them.

And then - an _explosion_.

Graves doesn’t _quite_ choke, but more whiskey goes down the wrong pipe than he can shrug off, and he coughs wretchedly for a few extremely painful seconds. Nobody can hear him over the guitar.

The _guitar_. There is _one_ guitar, plugged into a huge network of pedalboards and what looks like a pedal synth. One guitar, a completely ordinary Les Paul, played by one guy in a hooded black robe that hides his whole face and looks like it’s actually been chewed by a pack of wolves instead of just artfully distressed, and that one guy and one guitar are producing _the heaviest fucking metal Graves has ever heard in his entire goddamn life._

He’s got his bottom E drop tuned so low Graves can feel it in his organs, but the rest of it is some cockamamie Buckingham tuning, on all the wrong pitches to sit where Graves knows the open strings should be. The robe makes him look like he’s flailing wildly, as he stomps pedals to loop and chop and skew the sound until it’s almost unearthly, impossibly dense, improbably complex. He can’t actually be flailing, though. This must be so practised, so instinctual - it’s a chaos so calculated it must be perfect.

Graves doesn’t realise he’s sitting there with his mouth literally hanging open until Jeff nudges the hand that’s still clinging nervelessly to the bartop with a glass of water.

He nods his thanks. “Who _is_ this guy?” he mouths, over the howling of the Les Paul.

Jeff shrugs. “I dunno,” Graves lipreads. “I pay him cash. I don’t know his name. He doesn’t chat. Just shows up, does his set, destroys, leaves again. Good deal.”

Graves shakes his head helplessly. 

He’s… he’s _gotta_ sign this guy. His whole life since Deviltomb, everything he’s done since he cut his hair and accepted there was no stopping time - none of it is going to have mattered if he can’t get this guy on his label.

He’d only got the job in the first place, after all, because he’d showed up still three-quarters drunk from waking his dead band, and put his boots up on Sera Picquery’s desk, and told her with a straight face and absolute conviction that she should hire him precisely because he’d slept with nearly everyone in L.A., most of New York, and half of Nashville besides. He knew _everyone_. And he’d been careful enough in all of that not to catch anything incurable, so obviously he understood risk management, and what more could she ask for? 

It was, he realises in hindsight, possibly inadvisably ballsy as a sales pitch. But since it was the gospel truth, and he’d immediately leveraged it to bring them six of their biggest acts, his career after that had gone very smoothly. He doesn’t fuck nearly as many people these days - who’s got the time, or the energy? - but he still prides himself on knowing everyone.

It burns like the whiskey in his windpipe that he has absolutely no idea who this guy is.

The shape of him in the robe is… not anyone he recognises. He’d know a dozen guitarists in this town by their upstroke alone, the same way he’s sure they’d know him. And this guy - Obscurus, Graves reminds himself - has a distinctive enough way of - almost dancing over the pedal boards. He’s sure he’s never seen it before.

His shoes are polished. That rules out more than three-quarters of the musicians Graves has ever met. Sensible enough, though. They don’t have to be metal if they’re under a robe, and the soles look thin. He probably has a decent amount of sensitivity through them. 

His hands are - really good, really quick, long slim speedy fingers. Probably - _definitely_ , if he’s being honest - faster than his own, which are not ill-suited for guitar and never were, and managed plenty of impressive things in his time. But they aren’t Obscurus’ wickedly fast hands. Graves thinks he’d be able to follow what the guy was doing, maybe, if he could get right up close. Not from the bar. But there are no rings, or scars, or tattoos, or even helpful moles. They’re beautiful, skillful, entirely frustratingly anonymous hands.

Nothing else of him is visible. He’s about six feet tall, and skinny, so Graves is pretty sure he’s not looking at Orianthi. He might as well be looking at Buckethead, but he doesn’t think he is.

He _should_ know. He knows _everyone_ in this town. Everyone who’s anyone, anyway, and Obscurus is definitely about to be someone if he isn’t already. Graves is going to make sure of it.

He waits, poised on his barstool, for the instant the guy crashes to a thunderous, glorious finish. It’s _wild_. He wants to scream and holler and stomp, but he doesn’t. Jeff’s holding open the door behind the bar that will get him into the employees only area, and from there into the tiny backstage, and he - doesn’t run, quite. There’s too much whiskey in him for running. But he walks as fast as he reasonably can.

It isn’t fast enough. There’s nothing left backstage but the cold draft that tells Graves that Obscurus, whoever he might be, booked it out the stage door not two minutes ago.

Graves grits his teeth, and pulls out his phone, and opens his calendar. On next Friday’s date, he types, simply, _OBSCURUS_.

He can wait. But not forever. It’s going to happen. He’s going to meet Obscurus, and talk to him, and sign him to make two or three transcendent albums for MaC, and that’s all there is to it.

\---

It’s a hell of a week, in between. Tina is still giving him the silent treatment and her patented Tragedy Eyes, and he’s a little bit over it and still can’t see his way clear to signing a big enough cheque to save the heartwarming orphans of New Salem. If he didn’t have to buy out a Shaw contract, maybe, maybe, but it grinds his gears too much to pay that much above market value for an act that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to have any chance of being marketable. There’s just no money in good Christian family values these days.

He does try. He gives the CD another listen, and really listens, even to that blasted sunshine song that always sticks the pre-chorus in his head for a few hours, and devotes some serious thought to what he would recommend to them as a real success strategy. It’s not impossible. They could make something out of the lead girl, Chastity - _Chastity,_ he thinks, _really?_ , but then there’s Modesty on drums, and Faith and Prudence and Hope and Patience and Charity in the backing vox, and by the time he properly internalises that the gawky, sharp-faced kid on guitar is called _Credence_ he’s almost numb to it. Anyway, he thinks, he’s not really one to talk, having gone around calling himself Vaal for ten years because it was the only metal thing you could do with _Percival_ unless you went for the Chevalier Perceval, dungeons and dragons, Holy Diver end of things, which wasn’t Deviltomb’s schtick. If they could get away with Vaal, Theseus, Desmond and Serpens (who’d been born Patrick, but had thought laterally), he can damn well accept Credence and Chastity.

There’s nothing special about them as musicians. Chastity has a clear voice that seems like it should carry, Modesty’s not too bad a little drummer, and they all have a strong, square sense of timing that might be exploitable. They could probably produce some squeaky-clean, Danish style pop. If he hired the right producer and a songwriter with Ivory soap for a soul, it could be done. But that’s more money on top of what he’d have to spend to break them out.

In the end, just because he does really like Tina, he hands her a demo tape from one of their less imaginative Scandi pop contacts, and a sheaf of sheet music. “Take it to the Barebones as a peace offering,” he tells her. “Get them to woodshed it for a couple of days and I’ll go to a rehearsal. If they can do what I think they can do…”

Her face lights up, but he holds up a cautionary finger. “No promises. I haven’t talked to Sera yet. If I’m wrong, or they’re too set in their style, then I don’t think there’s any hope. But - I’m giving them a chance.”

Tina scurries off on her mission and he feels better for a couple of hours.

Until she gets back.

She’s white-faced when she drops into his visitor chair. “I don’t know what to do,” she says into her hands. “Graves, you have to help me. Please.”

“Talk to me,” he says, as if there’s a choice.

“I dropped in on them. Didn’t call first. Walked in, I could hear them playing, and then they stopped and - she was screaming at them, about how they’ll never get a better contract if they can’t play the songs right. I opened the door -” She swallows. “I watched her hit Credence right across the face. The rest of them were just. Just watching, like it happens all the time… and he didn’t even look up, just. He just took it.”

He narrows his eyes. “Did you say something?”

She gulps and shakes her head. “I… couldn’t. The way she looked at me - I was _scared_ of her. So I just. I just barged in like I hadn’t seen a thing and acted all sunny so she’d stop and give him a few minutes. Gave them the music and asked them what you told me to - she didn’t like the idea much, playing someone else’s songs. I think she’s afraid it’s a slippery slope that might lead to sin. But Credence took the tapes and said they’d try. And boy did she give him a look for that, so I probably just made it worse.” She sighs deeply. “Anyway. Friday at 2, they said, go have a listen.”

Graves steeples his fingers and presses his mouth to them while he watches Tina sag in the chair.

“You know I can’t just sign over almost a quarter of our budget because someone’s mother is smacking them around,” he says finally.

“I know.” She scrubs her hands over her face. “I know, Graves. I know.”

“You can’t save everyone.” He tries to be gentle, but it’s the truth, and the truth isn’t usually gentle. He’s watched too many bands crash and burn that had more talent in them than these kids do.

“I know.” She hauls herself to her feet, then, and sighs: “2pm Friday. Please at least… try.”

“Is that not exactly what I’m doing?” he calls after her, but she doesn’t turn around.

At 1.45 on Friday, with his nicest suit on, he pulls up outside the community hall next to the little church where, according to his research, New Salem started out as an offshoot of the children’s choir. As though they know, somehow, that it’s him, he can hear Chastity about to hit the chorus: “Sweet summer sunshine, shine down on me - take me to the place where I am - meant to be -”

He hurries through the parking lot before it can infect him again.

Inside, the hall smells of musty carpet and wax crayons. There are a dozen unevenly coloured-in depictions of Jesus suffering on the cross pinned neatly to a corkboard next to the coat pegs, and Graves makes eye contact with him and nods in shared understanding.

His mouth is still pinched up in that wry half-smile when he walks into the main room. Mary Lou already looks as sour as Graves feels, but he forces himself to sound pleasant: “How are we all? I’m Percival Graves, A&R for MaC USA. I think you all know my colleague Tina Goldstein.”

He shakes hands with Chastity and Modesty first, then Credence, who doesn’t seem to want to meet his eyes. There’s a bruise across the back of his right hand about the width of a pencil, and he wonders darkly what Credence did to earn it.

Finally, he offers his hand to Mary Lou. She almost looks as though she will refuse it. Bringing up Tina had been a bad idea. This whole thing had been a bad idea. But he’s here now.

“So. How did you do with the song I sent over for you?” he says. “I’d like to hear it.”

Chastity makes a face. “Credence still isn’t playing it right.”

Credence is staring at his shoes. He mumbles something that Graves doesn’t catch.

“Speak clearly,” Mary Lou chides, before Graves can ask him to repeat himself.

For half a second, there is a little spark in Credence’s eyes as he looks up at Graves - “I think it’s better my way,” he says.

Graves gives him a considering look. “Well, let’s hear it, then.”

They retreat into their places, shuffling sheet music - he notes that Credence is the only one who doesn’t have parts in front of him - and settling themselves into their spaces. Then they look to Modesty to count them in.

She clicks her sticks with a surprising amount of gusto. “Two - three - four -”

It could be worse. It could. Chastity is clearly one of those people who claps on 1 and 3 and has no natural feeling for syncopation, but she plays as accurately as a synthesizer. Modesty is solid on the beat, doesn’t rush or speed, and puts a good amount of weight behind the kick drum for such a skinny kid. 

Immediately, he knows what Chastity means, though. Credence has the chords Graves remembers from the demo tapes, but he’s throwing in all kinds of extra notes - octaves, sixes, fours - and he’s dropping them in different places in the bars from where the fairly traditionalist demo recording had put them. The result is a beat that hops instead of stomps, bounces instead of chugs, and a tune that winks slyly instead of the blank Colgate sparkle of the demo.

What Graves also knows is that Credence knows what he’s doing. From the very barest hint of a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, and the way Chastity is glowering at the back of his head, he’s - Graves almost laughs. He’s _stunting_. It’s the quietest little rebellion Graves has ever seen, but there’s no mistaking it. He’s showing off for the fancy record company man.

When he echoes Chastity’s vocals over the bridge, two bars behind like a call and response, Graves can’t help the satisfied nod. It’s not fancy - nothing he’s doing is fancy. He’s playing rhythm, not heroing. But it’s the right thing to do, and if he’s doing it instinctively, then his instincts are excellent and could be built upon.

And if Graves just keeps nodding until Credence glances up and catches him doing it, well. That’s fine.

Credence does go pretty red. But he doesn’t miss a beat. _Well now,_ Graves thinks, letting his own face mirror Credence’s little smile. _This is interesting._

They get to the end of the song before Chastity explodes.

“ _Credence_ ,” she wails. “Why did you play it like that? That wasn’t what he _gave_ us. That isn’t what we _sound_ like.”

The tiny smile is gone, and Credence is staring at his shoes again, cheeks still as hot as before.

“Excuse me,” Graves interjects. “Maybe you should _consider_ sounding like that. I think that was a vast improvement on the original, actually. That was some good work, Credence.” Credence’s eyes snap up to him, but Modesty’s face falls a little, and Graves says quickly, “All of you, in fact. I’m impressed.”

“But you’re not going to sign us, are you,” the little girl says. “Ma told us. You don’t think our music is interesting.”

He doesn’t glare at Mary Lou by sheer force of will, but focuses on Modesty’s accusing look. “Well. You can make some new music, can’t you?”

“If you don’t like us,” Chastity snaps, “just say so.”

He holds his hands up, a placating gesture and a shield: “I didn’t say that. My job is to find bands who will make records that will sell. I asked you to try this song as an experiment, so I can see what you would do with a song I could sell no matter who played it. What individual spin you would put on it as New Salem.”

Mary Lou sighs. “Fine words, Mr Graves, but I haven’t forgotten what you said to me. And that _is_ who New Salem is, not some slick, commercially produced outfit from godless _Hollywood_.” She spits the last word as though it were a curse.

He won’t laugh. He won’t laugh. He won’t. “Mrs Barebone, I understand your reservations, but as I said, this was an experiment. Now, it’s given me a lot to think about, so I’m going to leave you to your rehearsal and go think about it, if you don’t mind. I’ll let you know about an offer on Monday.”

“Goodbye, Mr Graves,” Mary Lou says. It’s the clearest dismissal he’s ever heard, and not for the first time, he wonders about the pride of rejecting any offer that requires the slightest change from them, if they really are doing that poorly over at Worldwide on Shaw Jr’s terms.

Isn’t pride supposed to be one of the deadly sins? He’s pretty sure they covered that. But maybe the humility of poverty offsets it somehow. He’s never really understood how that comes out.

He can feel their eyes on him as he leaves the room. But he lingers, just for a minute, in the outer hallway, under the watchful eyes of the colouring pages, because they think he’s out of earshot.

“He’s not going to sign us,” Modesty says.

“Honestly, Credence,” Mary Lou snaps. “What possessed you?”

“He liked it,” Credence says softly. “He said - he liked it.” Then there’s a stifled little yelp. “Sorry, Ma, I’m sorry,” the boy says quickly.

Graves purses his mouth, weighs his options, and then makes a sudden decision - he pushes open the outside door, noiselessly, then lets it slam shut and strides back towards the rehearsal room.

“Sorry, one more thing,” he says, as he comes through the inner door. Credence is clutching his hand, the one with the bruise, and it makes Graves’ blood run hot. “I forgot. I need those sheets back, and the tape. Since you won’t be playing that sort of godless stuff anyhow.”

Mary Lou and Chastity glare at him, certain they're being mocked somehow, but it buys a couple of minutes of scrambling together the music and the demo, and he takes the opportunity to wade into the middle of the rehearsal space proper, under the guise of collecting all of the printed sheets. While nobody’s watching, he quickly palms one of his business cards and slips it into the pocket of Credence’s jacket. That earns him a startled look, but Graves winks swiftly and turns away.

Maybe, just maybe, the boy will get the idea and call. He’s worth more than this band. Graves could really do something with him in the right setting.

He knows he can’t save Credence for long, not today, but… maybe. Maybe there’s hope for the future.

This time he really does leave, and spends most of the afternoon in his office, wondering what he can offer Credence, if he calls. Maybe some session work, if he’s a quick learner, or some demo work… or if he won’t leave New Salem, then Graves is just going to have to talk Sera into it somehow. It might just be worth it. It might.

Around dinner time he puts work in the weekday mental box, and mentally tapes it shut. Tonight isn’t for worrying about the fortunes of a serviceable young guitarist who probably just needs a lucky break. Tonight is for a couple of shitty whiskeys, and this time, catching Obscurus and begging on his fucking knees until the guy signs with Graves.

By nine he’s camped out, back at the bar, with Jeff on alert. He’s been thinking about it, and as much as it pains him to miss a second of what Obscurus is going to do, he’s probably got half an hour to watch. Then Graves can sneak backstage and be waiting when he finishes.

The show is different, tonight. It’s not as blistering, but there’s a depth of feeling in it that has Graves by the throat. He’s never been an unemotional man anyway, much as he has no tolerance for histrionics at work, and he’s not ashamed of the ache in his chest and the stinging in his eyes. He just wants to know what the deal is, where all of this comes from. He has to be Graves’ age, or maybe a little south of it - nobody under thirty could know so much about the deep pervading melancholy of life.

There’s something off about his hands tonight, though. Graves still isn’t close enough to see properly, but he’d swear there’s something - holding him back, like his rhythm is off and his power is ever so slightly dialled back. He hasn’t tried any fancy fingerpicking or tapping beyond what he can do with a couple of fingers. But then, maybe he just doesn’t feel like fireworks tonight. Any judgement is entirely academic when he’s still one of the very best guitarists Graves has ever heard.

It’s all he can do to make himself leave his spot at the bar, but he has to. And even muffled and distorted by distance and intervening walls, the finale of Obscurus’ short set has Graves shaking his head in absolute astonishment. This guy is just unreal. Just… unreal.

He’s half convinced himself, as he stakes out the door to the stage, that the man who walks through is going to be someone he knows. Someone he recognises - Tony Iommi, even though he’d swear Tony was in Europe with someone, or Gilby Clarke, or Steve Vai, slumming it.

And then Obscurus comes through the door, still hooded, with his arms full of gear and his guitar in a gig bag on his shoulder. “Excuse me,” Graves says quickly, pushing himself off the wall, “my name’s Percival Graves, I’m with MaC USA Records. I really need to talk to you, man, please, can you spare a second?”

Obscurus shakes his head. “No, Mr Graves,” he whispers. “Not tonight. I don’t have time.”

“Please -” Graves clasps his hands together in front of him in supplication. “Please don’t go yet. You’re amazing. You’re miraculous. Please let me make you rich and famous.”

There’s a huff of breath from under the hood, but Obscurus shakes his head even more firmly. “I have to go. I’m sorry.” And then he’s pushing past Graves and out the door into the night.

“Obscurus,” Graves yells after him, like a jilted lover. “Please?”

There’s no answer. Graves sags back against the wall, leans his head on the chipped and dirty paint, and lets himself give voice to a growl of pure animal frustration.

\---

“I wish there was a way around it,” Graves says. “I really do. But I don’t think I can weasel well enough to go toe to toe with Shaw the Lesser. It’s just going to have to be a payout.”

Sera gives him the same look she's been giving him since he and Tina sat down in her office half an hour ago. “And I’m telling you, financially we can’t, politically we can’t - can you imagine what will happen if we give in? For an act like New Salem? Honestly, Graves, you know better. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Not for anything less than the next Adele, anyway.”

“I’m telling you.” Graves spreads his hands out on the desk. “Sera, there's more to them than what they sound like.”

“Yes, Tina told me,” Sera says, but she’s shaking her head. “As tragic as it is, I am not running a charity, nor a shelter, nor a foster home. I’m sorry, Val - but I just can't see my way through to it. The answer’s no.”

“Please -” Tina says desperately. “You can have my recruitment budget for the quarter?”

“Your determination does you credit,” Sera says, more gently. “But that's extra specially no. I need you to boost our roster in other areas. Now. If you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting I have to get ready for.”

They take the hint, and Graves holds the door for Tina. 

Out in the hallway, he gives her shoulder a brief squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I tried.”

“You really did.” She looks up at him. “What changed your mind?”

“I didn’t change my mind. I promised you I’d try. And I did.”

“No, but I’ve seen you do things only because you promised to do them. That wasn’t - you actually care about them. So what happened?”

He wishes he knew, honestly. “I can’t tell you exactly,” he says finally. “But let’s just say - that boy. Credence. There’s something special about him, and I don’t want to lose track of him. And I don’t know if I can get near him unless I can appease Mary Lou Barebone.”

Tina looks glumly at him. “Well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we.”

Graves taps the side of his nose. “I’m not out of ideas yet.”

That gets a weak smile out of her, which is the plan, and he keeps up the pretense right up until his office door is shut.

He _is_ out of ideas. Frankly, he doesn’t know how he can outmanoeuvre Mary Lou without information he doesn’t have, and can’t get without being conspicuous; there can’t be that many Barebones in the White Pages, but it’s not like he can just call their house and not raise any questions. He somehow doubts Credence is allowed to have a cellphone. So he’s relying on the little spark of spirit not to have gone out entirely, and to fuel one very slightly reckless decision. 

He doesn’t really like his odds.

Still, he’s going to have to take them. Unless Credence comes to him, he’s going to end up losing two talented guitarists in the space of a week, which is unacceptable. And Graves’ force of will has bent the universe in his direction before. It’s just going to have to do it again.

\---

All the force of will and positive thinking Graves can muster aside, Credence doesn’t call. Graves is sure that it’s to do with the conversation he made himself have with Mary Lou on Wednesday after he’d finally admitted to himself that he was going to have to stop bluffing, and to the pile of requests he’s making of the indifferent universe this week, he adds the rather faint hope that she isn't taking it out on Credence. She hadn’t even sounded surprised - just disgusted with him, along with the rest of humanity.

He remembers that he’s an adult, and holds onto his temper with both hands and his teeth when he happens to see Henry Shaw Jr out on the street, and doesn’t deliver unto him the right cross he so thoroughly deserves. Mostly because it’s been a while since he last saw the inside of a police station, and if he lets himself hit Harry Shaw just once - well, it won’t be just once.

But it’s a very long and very difficult week, and by the end of it there’s really only one thing left he wants to do with the last shreds of Friday.

Because Graves always, always pays his tab and never causes trouble, Jeff agrees to slip a note into the envelope he gives to Obscurus. It's not much - _please call me whenever you can, any time, I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t sign you_ and his personal cellphone number. He signs it _Val Graves_ , even though Sera’s just about the only person he considers enough of a friend to use that nickname with. Using _Vaal_ would be too much, too _don’t you know who I am_ when he isn’t even that anymore, but he finds he likes the idea of “Val” sounded out in Obscurus’ hoarse whisper. 

And then he takes his usual barstool, and waits for the magic to begin.

Obscurus’ set this week is slightly uneven. For the first time, he’s playing a cover - a Buckethead track that he’s clearly rehearsed until it’s developed the mechanical sheen of a technique study. He sounds amazing, but… he’s not there. Not really. Not until the second song.

The way he embroiders on it, pulls apart the stacked chords into space-filled arpeggios and lingering runs, it takes Graves nearly two minutes to be sure of what he’s hearing.

It’s a Deviltomb song. And furthermore it’s one of _his_ : it’s “Shadowplay”, the big instrumental seven-minute epic he’d argued into existence on _Brimstone and Firestrike_ , because everyone else’s guitarists got to show off and it was well past time. And he’d outdone himself. It was a towering layer cake on the record, seven or eight overdubs, and when they did it live it took him, two delay pedals, and both of their guitar techs hidden below the stage to even begin to approach the full complexity.

Obscurus is doing it all, alone up there with his pedal board.

How - how can he be doing it? It’s almost like he’s put a microscope to Graves’ riffs and he’s ticking off each electron in its proper place, at a speed so stately that it turns from a whirlwind of fire into the staggering beauty of a spinning galaxy.

Graves’ fingers twitch in the shapes of the chords, the irrepressible effects of seven years of rehearsal; but where Obscurus lands the notes is not predictable enough for Graves to be anything but breathless, waiting to see where he goes next even on a song he knows better than anyone on the planet.

Obscurus knows every element, though, with an anatomist’s perspective on the sleek body of “Shadowplay”. Not a thing is missing, and he opens its ribcage for nearly twenty minutes and points out every single beauty mark on its skin, every perfect crevice in its chest, every drop of the blood that makes it live. It’s the most precious compliment Graves has ever been paid. 

He’s mesmerised. So much so that he almost can’t move when Obscurus finally drops his hand to the strings for the very last chord. He’ll never make it backstage to catch him, he thinks blurrily -

Before he quite realises what’s happened, he’s off his barstool and stumbling to the edge of the stage.

Obscurus, under the robes, tenses, but Graves is a showman, not a stalker: he goes to his knees next to the monitor in a full Wayne’s World style _we’re not worthy_ genuflection. 

There he stays, head down, arms out, waiting for something - anything. Everyone else can think, and probably does, that he’s just a drunk businessman overcome with admiration. It’s not even, strictly speaking, untrue. But Obscurus knows the whole truth. Graves knows he does. And when two shabby but clean and polished shoes appear next to his knees, he holds his breath. 

“Vaal,” Obscurus whispers, above him. “Thank you for your song.”

His fingertips brush Graves’ shoulder. And then he’s gone.

Graves thinks of his note, and pulls at the strength in that thought until he can, very slowly, pick himself up off the floor.

\---

He can’t sleep that night. He’s too sloshingly full of thoughts to lie down without them spilling out until he thinks he’ll drown in them.

Obscurus, faceless, nameless, perfect.

Someone still thinks about Deviltomb. Not just thinks. Cares. Loves them enough - loves _him_ , dare he even think it? - to turn his work, his own magnum opus, into something he never even imagined it could be.

What can it mean? Is it an apology, is it a homage, is it… something more? He wants to scream, as though somehow Obscurus could hear him, and reply. As though Obscurus could take the scream, crystallise it out into its most perfect form and return it to him as a glistening work of art.

He doesn’t deserve it. He’s old and irrelevant and he can’t even save a sad, suffering kid who needs him because he can’t talk his boss into paying more money than she should. He doesn’t deserve a stroke of cosmic luck like Obscurus.

But -

Damn it -

Graves _wants_ him.

On his label - in his life - in his bed, maybe, even. Graves doesn’t care what Obscurus asks for anymore. Not after tonight. He could ask for Graves’ own heart, still warm and dripping, and Graves would go find a chef knife. Sex, money, fame, power, devotion. Anything. The world.

But all of that is contingent on Obscurus wanting anything he can offer, and. 

If he doesn’t.

If he walks away.

Graves can’t quite breathe.

He’s not a praying man, but he curls himself into a ball and waits for dawn, and wishes, and wishes, and wishes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.
> 
> But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fucking _sign_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note i am updating the work tags as i go and as things get worse for our boys.

Dawn brings a certain measure of cold clarity. The TV has switched from infomercials to cocaine-perky morning shows, and Graves is still on the couch, staring anywhere else but at the blinding white smiles of the hosts. 

He’s gone beyond tired and into some sort of higher plane, but mostly by force of habit he levers himself off the cushions and sheds clothes all the way to the pool. The shock of throwing himself into the chilly water of the deep end is enough to slap him back to wakefulness. Ten lengths, until it starts to feel like work; then he gets a lungful of breath, crosses his legs and sinks to the bottom. 

Through six feet of blue water, the sunrise is rippled and distorted, as though he’s on another planet with a thicker atmosphere. He imagines for a moment being light-years away from all of his problems, all of his responsibilities. Everything is quiet, weightless, nothing but the pulse in his ears reminding him that he’s alive. 

He pushes each worry to sit, stinging, in the cavity over his soft palate, and examines them like gems under a loupe.

He is, of course, older than he used to be, and less influential - maybe. But still influential enough in his current sphere, if he looks at who he’s signed. So there’s no point in tormenting himself with that. 

Credence and Obscurus both have their reasons for knocking him back. It’s nothing to do with him in all likelihood. He can keep thinking and keep trying, but it’s not his fault if they don't take his freely extended hand. 

Credence is an adult. He can make his own choices. He knows Graves wants to help. If that's all Graves can do, it will just have to be enough, even if it doesn't feel like enough. 

With blood in his veins now instead of just music, he can see his reaction to Obscurus covering “Shadowplay” for what it was. He likes to think he can take or leave people, in general, but - that was a two-footed and deeply undignified leap into _lonely old man_ , fuelled by stress and lack of sleep and the exquisite ache of being so appreciated on one level when he so badly wants something different. 

At least he got it out of his system while he was alone. Small mercies. He can only imagine what Obscurus’ reaction would have been if he’d actually been able to tell him any of the things he’d been thinking in the dark of night, drunk on emotion. 

He releases the breath from his burning lungs in a smooth exhalation and tries to blow all the worries out with it, into the water to be diluted to nothingness and filtered out with the rest of the impurities. 

And then he pushes himself up off the bottom and surfaces, flinging his wet hair back and gasping, reborn or at least repaired, and as ready as he’ll ever be to take gravity back onto his shoulders again. 

\---

The end of his good mood, or at least his determination to appear to have one, is sudden and unforeseen and comes from an entirely unusual corner. 

Queenie, who is the best admin Graves has ever had and who therefore can’t be fired even if he’s pretty sure she listens in on the switchboard calls, is dropping off the Tuesday afternoon coffee run. Graves knows she’s sweet on the guy who owns the coffee shop, and she’d probably go anyway, but he’s made her a deal - he buys her coffee in return for her getting his latte extra hot and bringing it to him last, along with every bit of gossip she has managed to collect on the way. It’s well worth the price of a skinny mocha with extra hazelnut syrup. People _talk_ to Queenie, mainly because she listens, and it’s saved Graves innumerable headaches. 

“Latte,” she says, and deposits it neatly on his desk blotter, “chocolate oat square, because I know you didn’t take a lunch break today and Jake baked them fresh this morning; Abernathy is going for the new manager position Picquery just created in Licensing, even though I don’t think he’s qualified; and the reason my sister is hiding from you is that New Salem just got scooped by Blackwelt.”

Graves almost spits coffee all over his desk. 

“ _Blackwelt?_ ” he says, as soon as he can speak.

“Blackwelt,” Queenie confirms. “And of course it’s Grinning-Wart behind it.”

Queenie’s been calling him that ever since the meeting six months ago where he’d addressed her alternately as _Connie_ or _sweetheart_ , and then only when his coffee cup was running low. One of the many reasons Graves keeps Queenie around is that it’s so interesting and so revealing to see how people treat her, in comparison to him in full suit-and-tie call-me-Percival mode. So he’d brought her in to take minutes, which she does well anyway, and had done in between coffee refills with a flawless smile pasted to her face. Only Graves had seen the draft minutes before she’d done a find and replace, and he cherishes the memory of reading _Fuckstick von Asshole proposed that SP consider the possible merits of a merger_.

Privately, he agrees with all of her assessments. Gel Grindelwald is the only person in L.A. Graves hates more than Henry Shaw Jr. He’s got all the ethics of a bought and paid for lawyer, the morals of a politician, and the smile of a snake-oil salesman. Graves wouldn’t trust him alone with Mother Theresa. 

“Fuck,” Graves says, with feeling. “Why didn’t I see that coming.” He leans on his elbow. “And I bet he took Junior’s pants in the deal too.”

“Undoubtedly. Which would be such a _nice_ thought, if it wasn’t _him_.” Queenie wrinkles her nose eloquently. “Teenie’s pretty sick over it. You know what they say about all those cute boys he signs.”

Graves does know. There are a lot of rumours, and although they’ve failed to coalesce into any kind of lawsuit yet Graves is pretty sure it can only be a matter of time. It’s not the taste for twinks that’s the issue, exactly - Graves was so omnivorous for so long he can’t care about anyone’s sexual preferences so long as they involve consenting human adults. But Grindelwald seems to feel it adds spice if they owe him something. Preferably their career.

Which raises a terrible, awful possibility... and now Graves feels sick too. “You think… Credence?” 

“That’s the kid with the hair, yeah?” Queenie mimes the sharp edges of a bowlcut at her temples. “And the guitar? I don’t know. That whole bunch look pretty buttoned-down to me, but I could be wrong.”

“They are.” It’s a relief, actually - the nausea passes enough that he can have another sip of his coffee. “I can’t imagine Mary Lou Barebone standing for any sort of roaming hands in her presence. I may be a little vague on what is and isn’t a sin these days, but that one I know about for sure.”

Queenie grins at him. “Well, then it’s probably just to piss off the Shaws, which is reason enough,” she says philosophically. “I almost can’t blame him.”

“I don’t want anyone to win this game,” Graves grumbles. “Can’t he just hold hands with Harry Shaw and jump off a cliff?”

“Maybe someday, if you’re very, very good.” She takes her own coffee cup, and says over her shoulder, “Now, eat your lunch, Mr Graves, and try not to worry about it.”

He does more or less as she says, but he can’t quite stop worrying.

Credence still doesn’t call. He’s not surprised, now. Just sour and annoyed, and spending far more time than he can afford on might-have-beens.

Obscurus hasn’t called him either. This fact could consume him if he lets it, and he knows that, but there’s still one toe poised on the spongy surface of the idea. What can he possibly, reasonably, do to entice Obscurus to talk to him? Nothing; but that just means he hasn’t thought of the right thing yet.

When, by Friday, he still hasn’t, he is worn down and something close to despondent. He grasps at straws, and in a fit of whimsy that he’s sure doesn’t suit him, he buys six solid milk chocolate roses on plastic stems, nicely wrapped like a real bouquet.

All the way to the bar, he feels like an idiot. But it’s the only plan he’s got, and he slips Jeff an extra fifty for playing along.

He waits in the dark and shabby backstage, perched on the lone folding chair with the sad bouquet cradled along his forearm, for Obscurus to arrive. Clearly he’s on a tight schedule after the show, but Graves has been doing elevator pitches for ten years and he really only needs thirty seconds, a minute at most. He can do this. He’s the best A&R guy he knows who still has all his teeth and his original soul. He can do this.

There is a car engine in the alleyway. It sounds expensive.

It stops. Three doors - the trunk, opened and then shut - and then another door, and the engine starts back up and purrs away.

Graves stands, just in case, and straightens his suit trousers.

The instant the hooded figure steps in the stage door, Graves lays down his dignity and starts talking. “Obscurus. Man. I’m sorry, I sound ridiculous, but you need to know I mean every word. You’re the best guitarist I’ve seen in the last decade, and I’m friends with Eddie Van Halen - please, please, _please_ , I’ve already got a contract drafted for you, as many albums as you want, you can keep your rights, I have a promoter who can get you on tour worldwide, if you don’t like the terms I’ll rewrite it, _please_ sign with me.” And he holds out the bouquet. “I brought you flowers, that’s how much I’m willing to court you.”

Obscurus steps in - and grabs him by the shoulder, and _shoves_. “You need to leave,” he whispers. “Now. Please.”

“No,” Graves says desperately, “you don’t understand - I can’t stop thinking about you -” He doesn’t mean to admit it, but it just falls out.

“ _You_ don’t understand,” Obscurus says fiercely. “Please, Mr Graves, _go_ -”

And Graves realises, in a cold drench of adrenaline, that Obscurus isn’t angry - he’s _terrified_.

Behind him, the door opens again.

“Well, well, well,” says an oily and terribly familiar voice. “Percival Graves. What a pleasure to see you here.”

Graves feels his entire body tense.

“Gel,” he says, between his teeth. “Long time no see.”

Grindelwald is being shadowed, as usual, by his two burly secretaries slash bodyguards, and the three of them suddenly seem to be taking up all the available space in the room.

Grindelwald’s hungry-shark smile doesn’t help. “Have you had a nice chat with my newest client, Percival?” He glides forward and plucks the wrapped bouquet from Graves’ hand. “Flowers. How sweet. But not as much inducement as I was able to offer, is it, my dear boy.” The last of that sentence is directed at Obscurus, and Graves sees him twitch.

“No, Mr Grindelwald, sir,” Obscurus says, to his shoes, and - it’s the first time he’s spoken above the hoarse whisper.

He feels all the blood drain out of his face. He _knows_ that voice. And like an anvil from heaven, directly onto his ribcage, it all falls into place and crushes the breath out of him.

Grindelwald chuckles delightedly. “Oh, Percival! You hadn’t realised, had you?”

He can’t speak.

“But I don’t suppose it matters. It was already too late.” Grindelwald drops the bouquet on the floor, raises one pale hand and pushes back Obscurus’ hood.

In the dim, greenish fluorescent lighting, Credence looks like he might faint. His eyes are squeezed shut.

“You belong to me now, don’t you,” Grindelwald croons, and caresses Credence’s dead-white cheek with the backs of his fingers. “And I’ll take very good care of you.”

Credence is _shaking_.

A grey mist begins to cloud the edges of Graves’ vision. “Credence,” he says. “You don’t have to let him do this.”

“Please,” Credence whispers. “Just go.”

“Your chivalry is misplaced,” Grindelwald says, with such dark triumph in his voice that Graves’ hands form fists all on their own. “He’s chosen this of his own free will. To help his family.”

“Is that true?” Graves can’t keep the growl out of his voice. “Credence, do you _want_ this?”

“Show him, my boy,” Grindelwald purrs.

Credence swallows audibly. Then his face goes blank, like he’s put himself away behind a cupboard door, and - he reaches a trembling hand up. His eyes flicker open, then shut again, and he presses his mouth to Grindelwald’s.

A tear creeps out of the corner of one eye.

It makes it an inch down the sharp plane of Credence’s cheekbone before Graves feels something inside him _snap_.

He doesn’t realise what he’s doing until he slams Grindelwald into the wall, both hands crushing the lapels of Grindelwald’s suit. “Leave him the fuck alone,” he spits, his nose an inch from Grindelwald’s. “You’re a disgusting predator and he _doesn’t want you_.”

Grindelwald smiles. “It doesn’t matter. He’s mine.”

So Graves punches him.

It’s not a good punch - he doesn’t quite get his fingers in the right place, and his knuckles howl. But it makes a fairly satisfying sound.

The second one is much better.

Grindelwald spits red on the floor and smiles with bloody teeth. “Percival. Assault? Come now. This is beneath you.”

Two sets of hands land on his shoulders and throw him back onto the floor; he’s looking up at Grindelwald’s bodyguards, and he snarls a wordless challenge as he starts to stand up. One size 14 loafer kicks him back down.

“Leave his hands and face,” Grindelwald says calmly. “He’ll need those when he works for me. But you may break as many ribs as you like - he’s not a singer.”

“ _Stop,_ ” Credence wails. “ _Please._ Don’t hurt him.”

“Come along, my boy,” Grindelwald says, in a voice that doesn’t allow for discussion on the matter. “You have a show to play, and he needs to be taught a lesson. _You_ understand the importance of proper punishment.”

The size 14 loafer impacts sharply with the side of Graves’ head.

After a while, he goes someplace else, and he stays there, though he’s dimly aware of the bodyguards leaving and a flash, maybe imagined, of Credence’s face, white and tearstained.

He doesn’t know how long he lies on the floor, with glass shards in every half-breath and blood soaking warm, then cold, through the fabric of his clothes. It feels like a long time.

And then Jeff is there, a strange grouchy beer-scented angel of deliverance crouching next to Graves and swearing; he goes away, and Graves goes away too, for a bit, and when Graves comes back everything’s bright lights and sirens and strangers in green jumpsuits asking him if he remembers who the President is.

It’s a stupid question, and anyway talking is too hard. He’s just… gonna sleep for a bit.

\---

Graves hates hospitals. He hasn’t been in one since that weekend in ‘92, and although so far this time has involved a lot less activated charcoal and a lot more Demerol, and the nurses aren’t judging his life choices quite as hard, he still mostly just wants to go home and crawl underneath something to die in peace.

Things are very exciting for a few hours until they get him in for an x-ray and decide he doesn’t need surgery, and then they give him enough of whatever they’re sticking into his elbow vein that he can sleep for a few hours.

He wakes up to early morning daylight, the Real Housewives of New Jersey on very low volume, and a drift of paperwork spread out on top of his blanket.

“Good morning,” Queenie says gently. She’s got a clipboard on her lap, but she puts it aside to pour a glass of water and hold it so he can drink. “You know, I almost forgot I was your emergency contact. I was pretty surprised when the hospital called me last night. How’re you feeling?”

He takes stock. “... Pretty good, for having been hit by an 18-wheeler several times. They tell me I’ll live.”

“You will.” Queenie pats an unbruised place on his forearm. “Sera says you’re not allowed to come to work for at least a week, though. And Tina says she’ll cover for you.”

He’s going to be so bored he might not live after all. But he can’t take a full breath without wanting to scream, and he’s fairly certain he’s been put in this position by professionals because it’s the most comfortable he’s likely to get, so perhaps eight hours at a desk isn’t the best idea yet.

“Did they…” He weighs the best way to say it. “Did they tell you what happened?”

“They told me your bartender friend said you got jumped. He didn’t know any more than that. Three ribs broken, four more cracked, luckily no serious internal damage but enough bruising that they want to keep you for observation today just to make sure you don’t throw a clot. Some head trauma, no concussion. A couple of nasty lacerations. Nothing that needed stitches.” She ticks the list off on her fingers as she goes. But then she looks at him for a long moment before visibly deciding to say it: “You had your wallet and phone on you still. Two hundred dollars in cash and all your cards - still there. And all your keys. So it wasn’t a robbery. They just kicked the hell outta you.”

“That… is accurate,” Graves admits.

It’s strange to see Queenie not smiling. “You don’t have to tell me. I can fill out all your insurance forms okay without that - I was doing all right without you even being awake. But if you want to make a police report… I can help you with that too.”

“No cops.” Graves shuts his eyes. “If they’re not already involved… I was being an idiot white knight. Walked into something I should have had the sense to walk away from. But…” He can see Credence’s face, in the dark behind his eyelids. “I think it was worth it.”

“Aww,” Queenie says, melting slightly. “Well. Musta really been something if it was worth seven ribs.”

It’s harder to open his eyes again than he thinks it should be. “Queenie?”

“Yeah, boss?” She squeezes his hand.

Dimly, he knows this will give the game away, but: “Can you ask - maybe ask Tina. Don’t send her. Just… tell her someone needs to check on Credence. She’ll help you.”

“Oh,” she says in a very small voice, and she’s smart enough to have made at least some of the connections. Oh well. “Okay. Of course.”

“Thanks.” The drugs are definitely kicking in now. “I’m gonna sleep.”

“That’s a good plan.” She tugs the covers up over him. “Sweet dreams.”

They might be. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember any of them.

He wakes up briefly when a nurse comes in to check on him, and Queenie and the forms are nowhere to be seen. There’s no reason to stay awake, not when everything still hurts so much, so he lets the drugs drag him back under.

At first he doesn’t know what’s woken him up again. There’s no-one in the chair by the bed, and the TV is off. But then there’s a sharp little sniff from over by the door, and he raises his head just a fraction to look.

He’s expecting maybe Queenie, or Tina, or even Sera.

He’s not expecting Credence, with his hand pressed to his mouth and his eyebrows in an awful shape.

“Hey,” Graves says softly, and beckons with the hand that doesn’t hurt. “Is it safe for you to be here?”

Credence drops his hand and tries to force a smile. It doesn’t go very well. Mostly he just looks exhausted, and guilty, and crushingly sad. “I told Ma I was going out ministering to the sick,” he says. “It’s not a lie, technically.”

“I definitely count as the sick,” Graves agrees. “And I can’t really sit up, so I would like it if you’d stop being so far away.”

Credence unglues himself from the doorframe and comes in. The hand that Graves couldn’t see before is holding a rather sad-looking bunch of red carnations, which he lays awkwardly on the bedside table as he sits down and pulls the chair up to the bed by Graves’ head.

“You brought me flowers this time,” Graves observes.

Credence nods. “I’m… I didn’t. Last night. I.” He bites his lip hard. “I didn’t want that to happen. Any of it. What he did, what they did…”

“What I did,” Graves supplies. “I know. I should have listened to you. But I couldn’t just let him - you know it’s assault, don’t you?”

Credence gives him a flat look. “I’m sheltered. I’m not stupid. I know it’s wrong - on so many levels.” He sighs heavily. “But what could I do, Mr Graves? It’s what he wants. He wanted me, and my music - and… and _me_. In exchange for buying out our contract and giving us a new one with better terms. And if I give him what he wants...” He spreads his hands in a shrug. “Ma gets what she wants, and we all eat, and maybe there’ll be something left over at the end of the royalty cheques. It’s not the worst bargain, to trade that for.” He stares at his knees. “For what he wants.”

Graves can’t do anything without wincing right now, but his expression is just one long extended wince as he looks at Credence. “Can I ask… what the terms of your contracts are? Both yours and New Salem’s?”

“I don’t know about all of New Salem’s. Ma signed that, not me. I didn’t see it. But from what she said it really is better than what we had at Worldwide.” Credence makes an unconvinced face. “It probably is. I think she mostly went with whatever Mr Shaw suggested when he signed us because she thought he was handsome.”

“Didn’t work for me,” Graves says drily.

Credence gives him half a smile. “You’re too worldly, Mr Graves.”

“Won’t you call me Val?” Graves implores. “Please.”

“I don’t think I should,” Credence says quietly. “I… don’t think Mr Grindelwald would like it if we got too friendly.”

“He doesn’t have to know.” He probably says that more harshly than he means to, but the hell with it. “He doesn’t _own_ you.”

“Not exactly.” Credence’s eyes burn into Graves’. “But. He knew about Obscurus, somehow, when he called us to offer to sign New Salem. Ma still doesn’t know. I had this idea, that - if I could play somewhere, if I could do something real - maybe someday I could make enough money to get my own place, or - or at least secretly chip in and help out with the bills so Ma wouldn’t be so angry all the time. I only ever managed to get to those sets at Jeff’s because Ma has her Ladies’ Bible Study group on Friday nights. I could sneak out, as long as I was back before she was.” Which explains why he’d always been in such a hurry. “I guess I’m lucky Mr Grindelwald didn’t tell Ma. But he told me that I was the whole reason he was willing to take the chance on New Salem. So he had me cornered from the beginning. He has the full rights to all of the music I produce as Obscurus, which is all of my income that Ma doesn’t control. He has the exclusive rights to the first album I release as Obscurus, and the first right of refusal on the next four.” 

Credence’s face looks bleaker and bleaker as he keeps talking. “There’s a clause that legally prevents him revealing my identity as long as he’s managing all of my income from those records, but all he has to do is revert that to me and he can name me. _And_ he can tell Ma exactly what I’ve been doing with him. At which point I will either be excommunicated from my church, thrown out of my home, shunned by my family, or possibly all of the above. And he can almost certainly kill New Salem’s contract right along with mine, leaving my family to starve.” Credence sighs. “You can see why I’d rather not make him angry.”

Graves wonders if you can even _have_ a migraine while loaded on Demerol. He feels like he’s trying to.

“My God,” he says, and raises an arm, despite how it hurts, to make a fist in his hair, which hurts even more. “My God, Credence. You do know how flagrantly unethical all of that is.”

“Of course I do,” Credence snaps. “But _what choice did I have?_ You don’t think I wouldn’t rather have signed with you? You don’t know how many times I almost called you. How close I came.” His eyes are glistening again. “I _wanted to be yours_. I know you wouldn’t have ever made me do any of what he will. I know. And I know he’ll steal my money, and I know he’ll touch me, and -” He gulps down the rising tears. “I know all of that. I know you would have been good to me. That’s… that’s why I played ‘Shadowplay’ for you. I wish…”

For a moment he puts his face in his hands. 

“I wish,” he says finally, his voice wobbling, “that it could have been different. I wish you could have saved me like you wanted to. But you couldn’t save my family, Mr Graves. And I did what I had to do.”

He stares Graves down, despite how badly his lower lip and chin are trembling.

And Graves thinks he might burst from the amount of feelings he’s trying to contain in his already-damaged body - his own pain, Credence’s pain, the killing truth that all of this was destined to end this way - that he’d failed this boy before he’d ever even tried.

He wishes he could do so much more, but he can’t keep himself from reaching out and cupping his hand over the back of Credence’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you did.”

Whatever Credence might have wanted to say, it is lost; he can’t hold himself together any longer, and even Graves’ hand won’t help. He falls forward and buries his face in the bedsheets, and sobs like his heart is breaking.

Graves kneads at his neck, and murmurs the occasional soft and meaningless phrase, but mostly he just lets Credence cry it all out. It takes a while. Graves isn’t really surprised. He has reasons enough for anyone, and so few safe places - and he’s safe here, and he knows it. That’s enough thanks for Graves. More than he deserves.

When the sobs have tapered off to occasional sniffles, Graves says, very quietly, “Credence?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t owe me anything, but… can I ask you to do three things for me?”

“If I can,” Credence whispers. “What are they?”

“First of all.” He keeps kneading. It’s soothing both of them. “I’ll stay away from you if it’ll make your life easier, but… I want you to keep my card. Somewhere safe, if you’re worried about anyone finding it. It might be useful to you. I have some pull in this town still, and anything you invoke me for, I promise I’ll back you up. No questions asked.”

Credence nods. “Okay.”

“Second thing. I want you to let me work on this situation. I couldn’t outthink Shaw, and fuck, don’t I wish I could have - but I know a lot of smart people, and those people know a lot of smart people. And I’m going to have a lot of time to think in the next few weeks. We’ll keep it quiet. But if I can, I want to help you out.”

That one takes a few seconds. “If you find something… what will you do?”

“Will you keep playing at Jeff’s? Or is there somewhere else I can leave a message that will get to you? Because I won’t do anything until you can say yes or no, I promise.”

“I don’t know,” Credence says. “If I’m allowed, I’ll keep my sets at Jeff’s. If I’m not, I’ll… think of something and tell him.”

“Done,” Graves says. “And third. If anything happens, and you need somewhere to go, or a couple hundred dollars, or a ride home, or even - even just a cup of coffee and a good listener… I gave you my personal number. I want you to remember you can _always_ call me. You don’t have to. You don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to, not for me. But you _can_.”

“I can’t do that,” Credence says immediately. “I couldn’t impose on you.”

“You wouldn’t be. I live alone. I have more money and more time than I know what to do with. If I hadn’t fucked everything up -” Graves shakes his head and tries again. “I want you to think of me as a friend, Credence. I know the circumstances make it difficult. But let me be your friend anyway, even if we can’t quite be… normal.”

“Mr Graves…” Astonishingly, Credence manages a watery but wry smile. “I’ve never been normal in my life.”

He smiles back. “Do we have a deal, then?”

Credence sighs. “Okay. I guess.”

Graves squeezes his neck once more, and then lets go. “Now. I don’t want you to have to tell a lie to your Ma. So quote me a Bible verse, or say a prayer for me, or bless me, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do when you’re ministering to the sick, and then get home before you catch any more trouble on my account.”

Credence’s cheeks go pink. “... _You_ want a blessing?”

“Sure,” Graves says. “I’ll take whatever favours I can get, right now, divine or otherwise.”

“Okay.” Credence thinks for a minute, and then slips from his chair to kneel easily on the hard floor. He clasps Graves’ hand between his. “Percival Graves,” he says softly, the words rhythmic and rehearsed. “I lay my hands upon you in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, beseeching him to uphold you and fill you with his grace, that you may know the healing power of his love. Amen.” Then he stands.

There’s a moment where it’s clear on his face that he’s debating the wisdom of what he’s about to do.

Then he leans in, and kisses Graves gently on the forehead.

“Be blessed in the light of God,” he whispers. “Until I see you again.”

“I can’t call on anything like that for you,” Graves murmurs. “I wish I could. But - stay out of trouble if you can, and if you can’t, you know where to find me.”

Credence gives him a jerky little nod - squeezes his hand again, and drops it, and walks very quickly out of the room, swiping at his eyes.

The spot on Graves’ forehead where Credence kissed him tingles, and he reaches up to touch it. It doesn’t feel any different from the rest of his skin.

Perhaps, he thinks, that means _all_ of him has very subtly been changed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.
> 
> But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fucking _sign_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note i am updating the work tags as i go and as things get worse for our boys.
> 
> and no, you're not imagining that it started at 4 total chapters, was probably at 5 last time you looked, and now is 6. i'm just really, really crap at estimating how long a story's going to be. i didn't think anyone would mind though.

They discharge Graves from the hospital the next morning, just about at the point where he would actually consider stabbing someone for access to a shower and a razor.

His whole body, it turns out, is connected to his ribs in a million unpredictable ways. Queenie has to help him into and out of her car, with an impressive amount of strength for someone half his weight and wearing kitten heels. Then she gets him out of his shirt and into a bathrobe, somehow without it feeling any more embarrassing than all of this already does, and lets him handle the rest.

The bruising on his ribs is as awful to look at as it feels like it should be, and the hot water only helps a little, but by the time he’s patted himself gently dry and scraped the nascent beard off his chin, there’s a terrific scent of coffee and frying wafting from the direction of the kitchen. He drags the bathrobe back on, belts it tightly enough to preserve the modesty he’ll pretend he has for Queenie’s sake, and goes to investigate.

“So there’s a casserole in the fridge,” she says, from where she’s poking a pan of scrambled eggs. “It’s just a hot dish, nothing fancy, but it’ll stick to your ribs. And I picked you up a few things - bread and milk and basics - on the way to the hospital, so you have something to take your painkillers with. Figured I’d whip up a little something for this morning, too. I’m starving and you look pretty out of it.”

He blinks at her. “You… didn’t have to do that.”

She giggles. “It’s no trouble, honestly. I love cooking, and you’ll remember it the next time my performance review comes up.”

“I will definitely try,” he allows.

“Now, Tina argued with me, but I put your laptop bag on the couch in the living room because I know you and I don’t actually want you to go nuts. But if you start sending me, or anyone else, emails at 3am, I will get IT to change your email server password.” She scoops a mound of fluffy eggs onto a plate, adds buttered toast from a stack next to the toaster, and slides the whole thing onto the table in front of him with a mug of coffee. “There you go. Take your pills too.”

Credence’s carnations are a bright centrepiece, sitting in a pint glass full of water. He stares at them while he shakes painkillers out of the bottle.

“I couldn’t find a vase,” Queenie explains, as she sits down across the table with a plate of her own.

“I don’t think I own one.”

“Well, I guess that’s why, then,” she says cheerfully. “Who brought those in?”

He thinks about not telling her, but… she’ll find out eventually anyway, she always does, and it’s probably her fault anyway. “Credence. So you obviously got in touch with him.”

“What a sweetheart,” Queenie says admiringly. “Yeah, I found him - he was out in the park where him and all those kids usually give out the flyers, you know? I pretended I wanted to hear all about their church. Told him real quiet-like that it was you who sent me - to see if he was okay. Well, he looked okay right up until I said that. Then he asked if _you_ were. So I gave him the highlights reel, you know. He went so white I thought he might pass out.” She takes a thoughtful bite of her toast. “I don’t think he eats enough. Anyway. He said he’d go see you. And I promised I’d go to his Wednesday evening prayer meeting, ‘cause his Ma was looking at us.” She grins. “I’m gonna bake cookies and make him have _three_.”

Graves looks at her for a few seconds. “Queenie, aren’t you Jewish?”

“Sure I am, but his Ma doesn’t have to know that.” She winks at him. “Look, it probably counts as a mitzvah. And this way someone sees him. I thought you might like that.”

“He didn’t tell me,” Graves says. The eggs are delicious, fluffy and light and well-seasoned, but the painkillers are sticking in his throat and making it hard to swallow.

“He probably didn’t think I’d actually go.” Queenie shrugs. “He looks like he’s pretty used to hearing no from people. Maybe we can give him back some faith in humanity.”

“‘We’?” Graves questions.

She gives him a look. “Of course, ‘we’. You’re not telling me you won’t be staying in touch, Mr Graves. Not after he brought you _flowers_.”

The look makes it clear that she knows that it’s a good deal more than just a bunch of carnations between them, so he devotes himself to his plate instead of replying.

“Anyway,” Queenie says, pushing the last bit of her eggs onto the last bit of her toast, “don’t worry about anything for the next few days at least. Tina and I will keep everything running just fine, we’ll call you in the unlikely event of an emergency, and otherwise? Rest. And breathe deeply every now and then, the doctor told me to make sure I reminded you.”

“I think I can manage breathing.” Graves raises an eyebrow at her. “I only stopped that one time in ‘92.”

“That’s still one more time than most folks.” Queenie stands, sweeps her cutlery onto her plate and the whole pile into the sink, and leans against the counter as she ticks things off: “Now, food, drugs, laptop, lecture, Tina will be by after school on Monday with your homework, what am I forgetting?”

“I assume I’m not allowed to drive anywhere,” Graves says.

“Not today,” Queenie agrees. “So if there’s anything you need, give me a shout and I’ll make it come to you.”

“Great,” he says. “A prisoner in my own home.”

“Just relax,” Queenie says. “You can look that up if you don't know what it means, r-e-l-a-x, it's an old folk term.”

\---

It’s pathetic, and he feels very old indeed, but he does spend most of the next few days lying around the house. He makes it seem marginally less pathetic by at least spending one morning on the sun lounger next to the pool, and another attempting a marathon of classic action films. 

Nobody calls on Monday. He assumes this is because they’re trying not to disturb him, but honestly he feels increasingly useless and unimportant the longer he goes without hearing from people, so by Tuesday afternoon he’s got his laptop out and he’s compiling a list of files for Tina to bring him. He should at least be able to call people. They don’t have to know he’s doing it from the middle of a carefully engineered nest of cushions that makes it easier to stand up. 

He’s just hit send on the email to Tina at about four when the new mail alert dings. 

Neither he nor his addressbook recognise the sender, dwellinthedarkness@freemail.com - but the subject line is _I don’t know what to put here_ , and his curiosity is piqued. 

_Dear Mr Graves,_

_I hope you’re feeling better now and that your ribs don't hurt so much. How long will they take to heal?_

_I’ve never written an email before so I probably sound stupid but I don’t have anyone else to email. I made this so I can talk to you. Do you like the address? 1 Kings 8:12, it's one of my favourites. :)_

_Anyway, I had a really good idea - I told Ma that Mr Grindelwald wanted to see me, so she’d let me go downtown. She likes him now because he quoted half of Proverbs at her when they had their last meeting. I didn’t laugh when she said he was a good influence on us._

_But I did actually go and see him, and when he let me into his office I asked if maybe I could work at Blackwelt a little bit, because I was so interested in learning more about the record industry. I tried to make it sound like mostly I just wanted to learn more about him. That always works on TV. Maybe he doesn't watch so much TV but he believed me. So now I’m working in the mailroom five days a week, and I do photocopying and run errands and sometimes make coffee but I’m not very good at that. I only know how to make it in the big urn we have at the church._

_The good thing is, Ma’s happy that I’m earning a wage and pleasing Mr Grindelwald (I hope I don't have to please him too much yet) and there’s a computer down here that they have showed me how to use. I’m not very good at that either but I can log all the parcels and envelopes and stuff and when nobody was watching I made this email address. And now when I’m here if I’m quick and it’s not busy I can check it. So now I have another secret._

_I think I like this one best._

_This definitely sounds stupid, but you said you are my friend, so I’m signing this_  
_your friend,_  
_Credence_

Graves doesn’t want to laugh, because he’s discovered laughing hurts a _lot_ , but he does smile at the letter as he reads it over. Resourceful Credence. 

He opens up a separate window and searches that verse. 

“Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.”

He leans his smile on his knuckles as he starts to type.

_Dear Credence,_

_I do like your address. I can imagine you as a cloud of glory - that’s what you sound like, to me, filling the whole room with beautiful darkness so that nobody can do anything but stand in awe. I don’t know if that’s blasphemy. I think God might like to sound like that._

_They tell me I probably have about six weeks before I should let anyone hug me. I hope they’re right. It’s not much fun. But I will mend and I’ve learned my lesson. And it will be a much better six weeks if I can talk to you every now and then._

_Be careful with Grindelwald. You’ve been very clever but he’s pretty sharp too. Still, it’s worked in your favour, and maybe you can learn some useful things while you’re there. Like how record companies really function - mostly we run on coffee - and where they keep the contracts, and the best way to fill his desk with garden slugs. Not that you should do that. That would be a bad idea. I would never recommend a thing like that._

_Just the drawer where he keeps his pens._

_You ARE my friend, and my friends call me_  
_Val_

\---

Graves likes to think that since he quit haring around the world with a guitar and ingesting vast quantities of toxins, and started buying suits and sleeping regularly, he has more of a handle on his life. Maybe even almost a complete handle, the nice ergonomic grip-friendly kind that’s really good for steering with.

The problem is that all of a sudden there are a lot of things in his life that he has absolutely no explanation for.

He’s never liked cut flowers. They’re pointless. But as the bunch on his kitchen table, at which he doesn’t sit, slowly wither, he finds himself at the grocery store, staring at the tubs of carnations, desperate to bring home another bunch of red ones as though that will keep the originals alive. He does it, because seriously, they’re $5 and it’s consuming far too much of his mental energy.

He’s got a song stuck in his head, but it’s one he doesn’t know, one he’s only heard once. He hums it in snatches and sits at home, with a guitar balanced carefully against his healing ribs, trying to work it out.

He doesn’t normally check his email on his breaks, or even that obsessively at work. He’s more likely to be found with his headphones on, “doing my _job_ , Sera”, as he goes through whatever portion of the slush pile has made it all the way to his desk that week. But now he’s also flicking back to his inbox every fifteen minutes or so, with either disappointment or, about once a day, delight so clear on his face that the office has started to talk. Everyone but the Goldsteins desperately wants to know who he’s waiting for. (Queenie has the sense to keep her mouth shut, and he knows she’s running the betting pool at a tidy profit. Tina just doesn’t gossip, so nobody’s asked her - good thing too, because then the game would be entirely up.)

It’s not… anything big, really. The office is attaching far too much importance to the fact that knowing that Credence is busy, healthy, and above all, something approaching happy is making _him_ happy. Graves is pretty sure the fact that he still can’t take a deep breath, or touch his toes, or sneeze without having to bite back a yelp means that whatever enjoyment he can get out of the rest of his life is fair game.

Everyone who thinks he’s got a sweetheart should probably know that Credence still can’t even bring himself to call him by his first name. He’d even offered _Percival_ in case _Val_ was just too informal, but no, _Mr Graves_ it was and apparently would remain.

Obstinately, he keeps signing his emails with _Val_ , sometimes even _Val xx_. Someday, he thinks. Someday he’ll melt that ironclad reserve.

Tina still doesn’t quite understand why Queenie is still going to the prayer meetings, and tells Graves this any time she thinks he’s listening.

“It’s been three weeks,” she says, and Graves realises with a shock that she’s right - it has. “She comes back every time and tells me how cute Credence was, leading the meeting, with this expectant look. I don’t know what she wants me to say.”

“You’re saying it right now,” Graves sighs. “What she wants, Goldstein, is for you to tell me, so that it doesn’t all come from her, and so that I feel like everyone approves of this thing I’m not doing, and then eventually publically do that thing, to whatever outcome will net her the largest sum of money for that new handbag she keeps talking about.”

“Oh.” Tina mulls this over for a few seconds. “Well, I mean. I’m glad and all. There’s a lot more cookies around the house since she started doing this thing. And I’m glad to know the Barebones aren’t being slowly consumed by evil over there at Blackwelt.”

“Believe me,” Graves says, “any evil that wishes to consume Mary Lou Barebone is going to have a hell of a first mouthful.”

“I still wish we could have made it work, though.” Tina looks wistful.

“We might yet. Did you get a hold of your friend from college? What’d you say his name was, Nat? Nate?”

“Newt.” Tina smiles a little ruefully. “Almost. He messed up the time difference and called me at 2am. He’s gonna try again later today, he said.”

“You’d think an entertainment reporter would be better at timezones,” Graves muses. 

Tina’s smile gets more lopsided. “Newt gets by on charm. Well. Charm, persistence, and encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, but - mostly charm. Anyway. We didn’t talk for long but I’ll fill him in tonight and see what he can find out for me. If he’s still the same as I remember, there’ll be no prying him away from this story. He likes the dangerous ones best.”

“They don’t come too much more dangerous than Gel Grindelwald, in our biz,” Graves says darkly. “We only get one shot at this. I hope he knows that.”

Tina nods. “I’ll make sure he does, believe me. Oh.” She goes a little pink. “He wanted to know how you know the features editor at Rolling Stone.”

“How do you think?” Graves looks levelly at her. “Vegas, ‘89. I thought she was a hooker, she thought I was Bono, but by the time we figured it out we were both having too much fun.” He raises one eyebrow. It is fun when people forget he used to be interesting. “Any further questions?”

“I’ll… leave them to Newt.” She gets up rather hastily. “Right. I’ll let you know.”

“Do that.” And he hides a smile by turning back to his filing cabinets.

\---

_Dear Mr Graves,_

_I hope you don’t think this is forward of me but I have a favour to ask._

_Mr Grindelwald has been talking to me a lot this week. He wasn’t paying very much attention to me the last little while, which was nice - one of his other big acts was visiting and he was very much taken up with them. But they went home yesterday. Today when I went to bring him his coffee he touched my waist and said we needed to talk, and I was a little bit scared. But all he wanted to say was that he thought I should spend some time in the studio soon and maybe start work on the new album. He says to tell Ma that he wants me to assist with recording sessions, which is actually a good idea even though I hate to think that._

_The thing is that I already have some tapes. I’ve been recording for… I guess it’s a few years now, when I could. I was thinking of playing them for him so that he could see that I’m serious about this. But I’m not sure they’re good enough._

_I don’t know anyone at Blackwelt who would give me an honest opinion. I’m sorry, I know you’re so busy and you have so many better things to do, and please don’t feel that you have to._

_I would be very grateful if you would be willing to listen to one or two of them, just to tell me if I’m on the right track. I would value your opinion very highly._

_your friend,_  
_Credence_

\---

_Dear Credence,_

_Don’t be daft, of course I’ll listen to them. I’d love to._

_What if… would you meet me on your lunch break? You bring the tapes, all of them. I’ll bring the lunch. Name the time and day._

_yours_  
_Vxx_

\---

It’s all very cloak-and-dagger, in the end. Graves parks his Escalade up an alley a couple of blocks away, and waits patiently for the slim shape of Credence to appear in his rear-view mirror.

“I almost didn’t think you’d come,” he says, as Credence hoists himself into the passenger seat.

Credence gives him a shy smile. “I didn’t think you would either,” he admits. “It’s… it’s very good to see you, Mr Graves. You’re looking well.”

“Better than last time, anyway. Still a little creaky. But I haven’t gotten in any more fights.” He smiles, so Credence knows he’s joking, but also because it’s a little contagious, how Credence is smiling. He’s never realised that before.

“I brought the tapes,” Credence says. He holds out a tin box, the kind that come full of sugar cookies at Christmas. It’s old and dented and has rust spots on the picture of ice-skating children on the lid, but Graves nods respectfully as though it’s the Ark of the Covenant.

“And I almost forgot,” he says, reaching into the back seat and extracting the paper bag he’d collected from Jake at the coffee shop. “Sandwiches. I hope you like chicken salad? And there are sodas, and I think some danishes, or something -”

“I like all of those things,” Credence says gently, as though he’s the one who should be calming Graves down - as though Graves is the one who should be nervous here. “It was very kind of you to do this.”

“Nonsense.” Graves takes a pastry from the bag and peers at it. “I _think_ this is a danish.”

“I’m sure it’s good.” Credence fiddles with the lid of the box. “Did you… want me to put on a tape?”

“Please,” Graves says. “Whichever one you think is the best to start with.”

“There are… quite a lot,” Credence says, as he pops the lid off.

There _are_ quite a lot. Easily a dozen, home recordings on 60-minute tapes, each labelled in the same square and slightly wonky handwriting that must be Credence’s.

He’s staring at his knees. “I’ve been working on this for a while,” he mumbles. “Whenever I had a little money saved up. There’s a little studio I could sometimes go to, and it would take a while to get the money together, but I just used the time in between to practise more, so I guess it was good? But. Nobody’s really ever… heard them but me.”

Graves lifts one of the tapes up, turns it over in his fingers - and then looks back down at the box and chuckles. “I don’t think _this_ is one of yours,” he says, pulling out the battered old copy of _Brimstone and Firestrike_. “Was this an object lesson to show yours what would happen if they didn’t behave?”

There is colour high on Credence’s cheeks. “Ma would have taken it if she’d known I had it. So I hid it in the ceiling of the basement, with all the rest of these. It’s… the first heavy metal album I ever heard.”

“Oh,” Graves says, not so much a word as a breath. “ _Oh_.”

“I didn’t realise it was you, at first,” Credence admits. “But - Miss Goldstein mentioned you were a guitarist, when she dropped off the music, and I was sure you looked familiar for some reason.”

Graves opens the tape, and shakes it out into his lap so he can unfold the cardboard accordion with the credits and the lyrics, and - yes, there are the four of them, pouting at the camera, hair fluffed and legs spread to show off their crotches.

“God, we were young,” he says, almost disgustedly. “And such complete idiots, all of us. So fucking sure we’d conquer the world and live forever.”

“What happened?” Credence says quietly.

He folds the cardboard back over his own face. “Well. I died.”

“What?” Credence’s eyes go wide.

“No word of a lie.” He slides the tape back into its case. “Don’t mix bathtubfuls of liquor with pills you can’t identify. Or if you do, make sure that one of the strippers you’re partying with is doing it to put herself through nursing school, so that when your heart stops she knows enough to clear your airway and start CPR.”

“I don’t drink,” Credence whispers.

“Good man. Don’t start.” Graves hands him back the tape. “That was the fall of ‘92. After that it got harder and harder to keep on going. We tried to make one more album, but... the magic was gone. So we toured it and then we split. And I got a haircut and got a real job, as George Thorogood says, and here’s the man you see before you, boring as the day is long.”

Credence is quiet for a minute. “I’m really glad she saved you,” he says eventually.

“Me too. So I paid for the rest of her nursing degree, so she could go on to save much worthier people.” Graves smiles. “Now. We didn’t come here to talk about me. Eat your sandwich and play me something.”

Graves unwraps his own sandwich while Credence rummages through the tin. “This one, I think,” he says finally, and holds it up like he expects Graves to tell him no.

“Go on.” Graves gestures with his elbow to the tape deck.

Credence swallows, and puts the tape in.

It’s immediately clear that it’s a low-quality recording. There’s a hiss, and the balancing is off; there can’t have been an engineer involved. But he listens past that. 

What Credence is doing is sinuous and pulsing, like a heartbeat threaded through a whole circulatory system at once. A trembling vibrato edges into the melody, makes it totter and tumble into runs like falling to its knees; it is the sound of a body on the edge of collapse. And yet it goes on, somehow. He tears into a solo on an overdub - pleading, screaming, _leave me, leave me alone, please God have mercy_ \- and then it fades, on a long sustained hanging sus2 chord that makes Graves’ throat hurt, as the original melody picks back up again and drags itself through, looping unavoidable as gravity, to the end.

The food is forgotten. Graves is staring at the tape deck, as though it could explain; and Credence… is staring at Graves.

“My God,” Graves says hoarsely, and swallows to try to wet his throat.

“Is that… okay?” Credence hands him one of the sodas.

Graves closes his hand over Credence’s. “I’m going to be very, very honest with you here,” he says.

“Okay.” He can feel Credence’s hand shaking, but he’s looking up at Graves with such strained courage.

“Credence Barebone,” he says. “If you give that song to Gellert Grindelwald, I will never speak to you again.”

Credence shakes his head, completely lost. “Is that good? Just - just tell me, do you like it?”

“It feels like the inside of my _head_ ,” Graves says. “How do you know how to _do_ that, I don’t understand - yes, Credence, yes, I like it, I like it, I love it, I hate it, it’s _genius_. Jesus. Play me another one, right this _second_.”

“Okay. Okay.” Credence fumbles the tape out of the tape deck. It slips from his clumsy, trembling fingers - but Graves lunges, despite how it jars his ribs, and catches it before it can hit the ground.

He holds it out to Credence. “Here.”

But Credence doesn't take it, right away. He’s just looking at Graves, eyes too shiny to be entirely fine.

“Where were you two years ago,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

“Hey. Shh.” And it’s a gamble, and a stretch in the front seat of a car, and his ribs don’t much appreciate it, but Graves pulls at Credence until he leans across the centre console enough to put his head on Graves’ shoulder. “I know. But I’m here now.”

Credence takes a deep and shaky breath - holds it - lets it out. “I’m all right,” he says, unconvincingly. 

He tries to sit up again, but Graves can feel he’s still shaking. On a hunch, he doesn't let go.

Credence tries again - and then subsides, with a beaten sigh, and leans hard on Graves as he tightens his arms just a little around Graves’ chest. Not enough to hurt. 

“We’ll get you free,” Graves says. “I promise. Just - would you let me borrow those tapes for a few days? Please? I know you probably don’t want to let them out of your sight, but I need to hear them, _all_ of them, and you have to get back to work.”

Against his shoulder, Credence nods quickly. “Of course,” he whispers. “I… I trust you, Mr Graves.”

One skinny arm unwraps itself from him, and a clanking weight is pushed into his lap: the tin box. A few pounds of distilled hopes and dreams, belonging to a kid who’s never been allowed to have very many, and they’re all in Graves’ lap now without a shred of hesitation. 

The symbolic value is so heavy he has to take a deep breath of his own.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I’ll take very good care of them.”

\---

He packs Credence back off to work with the rest of his lunch and both the danishes, because heaven knows the boy needs the extra calories more than Graves does.

The tin box is stowed very safely in his bag, with its cargo so precious that Graves finds himself glancing over at it all afternoon just to make sure it’s still there. He wants quite desperately to just go through them all now, but he has a strong suspicion that if he does, it will end with him in Sera Picquery’s office, making an exhibition of himself that he will never be allowed to forget. Even if he _is_ right.

He reminds himself, as hard as he can: Credence isn’t his yet. And even when he is, not everyone in the music business is as excited about solo guitar acts as he is. Sure, in his world this is going to be the event of the year, but the globe will mostly keep on turning. It’s not the end of the world if he takes a day or two over Credence’s tapes, or if there's nothing he can do about them immediately beyond just listening to them and trying his best to give Credence some feedback more professional than _oh my God marry me_. 

But it’s a close call, tonight. He intentionally leaves his laptop in another room from the good stereo system, and puts himself in a beanbag chair that feels like the embrace of a lover while he’s in it but hurts like fuck to get out of. So instead of sending some emails he’ll regret in the morning, he lies there gnawing on his knuckles, ringing with the music like a crystal glass and ignoring the tears trickling into his sideburns. 

It’s a strange mix of emotions behind the tears; all of them are some sort of want, but they conflict and compound until he can't discern any clear way forward with them. He doesn’t even completely know which feelings are his and which are Credence’s, reflected and refracted. He just knows that this music is _too damn good_.

He can’t sleep. He puts them on again, from the beginning.

At 2am, with his self-restraint shredded, he finally writes to Credence. 

_There’s no way. There’s just no way._

_I can’t let you give these to Grindelwald. I’ve listened to all of them ten times over. He can’t love them like I can. Like I do. He’ll give you half the support and none of the publicity you deserve, and Blackwelt is the wrong label for this masterpiece anyway. Please, please, PLEASE don’t let him have these. I know I sound self-serving but I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to let these out of my hands. Your talent is too precious. YOU are too precious._

_Hold onto them just a little longer. Distract him if you have to, write something cheap if you can. I swear I’m trying to break you out. Just give me a little more time._

_yours_  
_Vxx_

In the morning, Credence writes back:

_Do you really mean that, Mr Graves?_

_I have a session with him tonight._

_He is starting to scare me. I have to play him something._

Graves thanks fate that the tin box is safe at his house, at least.

 _I mean every word and more,_ he sends. _Please trust me._

The answer he gets back is just two words, but they feel like a thousand, and they settle in his chest like a hot stone:

_I do._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.
> 
> But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fucking _sign_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd say i'm sorry for this one, but.

“These things take time, Mr Graves,” Newt Scamander says, in his ear. “Plenty of people are talking to me, but I have to substantiate it all in order for it to be worth anything.”

Graves is tired, and he just wants this nice English voice to tell him something good. “Can you give me any kind of a timeline, Mr Scamander?”

“As soon as I can. You have my word.”

“There’s a lot depending on this,” Graves says. “I know you know that.”

“Yes, Tina’s been very clear. We’ve spoken about this quite a bit, you know, Mr Graves - I think she’s taken it rather to heart.” Newt sounds kind, Graves thinks. He wants him to be. A kind person is easier to trust with secrets. 

“She does that,” Graves says. “It’s one of her better qualities, most of the time.”

“Quite,” Newt says warmly. “Look, I promise I’ll let you know of any developments in the situation. I do understand the difficult nature of your position. And that of your young friend.” Newt sighs. “From what I’ve heard, I can see why you were so concerned for him. Do you think he’d be willing to contribute?”

Graves bites his lip thoughtfully. “I was hoping to keep him out of this since he’s so close to the blast radius, but… I can ask.”

“Could you?” Newt says eagerly. “If he doesn’t want to, I can do without it, but it would be nice to be able to cite recent behaviour. Of course I wouldn't identify him, but I can’t guarantee I can anonymise him enough that Grindelwald wouldn’t know. I quite understand if that’s too dangerous for him.”

Graves shudders. “I will be very glad when this is over,” he says.

“We’ll speak soon,“ Newt says. “I’ll do all I can.”

“Thank you,” Graves says. 

He stares into space for a long while after the call ends, feeling powerless. It isn’t a feeling he’s very used to, and he hates it. 

“Coffee?” Queenie says from the doorway. “You look like a man who could use a pick-me-up.”

He realises he’s slumping and makes himself sit up. It’s bad for his ribs. “Yes, please. The usual.” He reaches for his wallet. “And you get yours, of course.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about me, boss.” Queenie dimples. “While you were gone, Jake found out you always paid for my coffee, and he just wouldn’t let me buy it - he said I can never pay for coffee in his shop again. Isn’t that nice of him?”

Graves frowns. “But I can’t buy your information if I don’t buy your coffee.”

“You know, you could get a lot of gossip for a handbag,” Queenie says, and winks at him.

“Noted,” Graves says. He’s too tired to argue.

“Aww, Mr Graves,” Queenie says. “I’m sorry, I’m only teasing you. Are you hurting today? Can I get you something stronger than coffee?”

He looks at her for a long moment and contemplates just telling her, in case she can somehow untangle the mess in his chest that kept him awake so late and is still dragging at him now. 

“No,” he says eventually. “I _am_ sore and tired and the situation with Credence is weighing on me, but I shouldn’t take it out on you. I know you were joking.”

“Hmm,” she says. Then she looks at him closer, as if she’s just realised something.

“Yes?” he prompts.

“Percival Graves,” she says slowly. “When were you planning on telling him you’re in love with him?”

He recoils, eyes wide and horrified. “What - Queenie, what are you talking about?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner,” she says, mostly to herself. And then she shakes her head at him. “You don’t think you are, do you. No, of course you don’t. Your intentions are pure.”

“They _are_.” He crosses his arms over his chest, as if protecting himself. “I’m not - first of all, you know I couldn’t, not if I sign him, that would make me as bad as Grindelwald. And I wouldn’t. That’s not - I don’t need that from him, and he deserves better from me.” He fumbles for words for a minute, amongst all the mental disarray. “And I’m not in _love_ with him. I admire him. Deeply, on a lot of levels. He’s important to me. And I feel a lot of guilt over the situation he’s in. But my God, I’m _not_ \- in _love_.”

“Okay,” Queenie says gently. “My mistake, Mr Graves. I’ll get your coffee.”

She disappears and he immediately feels awful for snapping at her, but by the time she comes back with the coffee and a lemon tart he suspects might be a peace offering, he’s on a phone call and can’t actually apologise.

As a form of expiation, he does at least email Credence. 

_Can we meet tomorrow for lunch, same time and place? Sandwiches again? I have something to tell you and I can give you your tapes back._

_Vxx_

It’s hardly the confession Queenie suggested, but it’s enough to get a quick reply that makes him feel a little better:

_Sandwiches would be perfect. I’ll look forward to it. :) - C_

And Graves doesn’t have to be in love to admit he’s looking forward to it too. 

\---

He is early. Credence is not, pelting down the alleyway five minutes after he was supposed to be there, but he smiles as he slides panting into the front seat.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Mr Grindelwald caught me and asked why I was in such a hurry. He wanted to talk about the session we did last night, but I told him I had an urgent errand to run for Ma and so now he’s going to see me in his office after five.”

“How did it go?“ Graves asks, as he passes Credence his drink. “Did you come up with something to play for him?”

Credence grimaces. “I blamed the fact that I didn't have my pedal board and my usual setup, so it didn’t sound like much. But I don’t know if he believed me. He kept asking if he could hear some of my older stuff and I sort of… deflected? I told him I was really more interested in working on this new stuff, and what did he think, and all that. I think he liked being consulted, at least. But he kept moving in close and trying to get in my space. It’s a good thing I don’t hold still when I play. He couldn’t get too near to me without risking an elbow.”

Graves frowns, disconcerted. “I thought he was leaving you alone a little more.”

“In the office, yes. But there are no prying eyes in the studio after hours.” Credence gives himself a little shake. “Anyway,” he says with forced lightness, “it doesn’t matter, he didn’t do anything I couldn’t handle. What did you want to talk to me about?“

“Well. That, actually,” Graves says. “So you know how I said I had a plan. I started out just thinking about how to free you from his slimy grasp, but… it came to me that actually, you aren’t the first to be in those tentacles and you won’t be the last. It’s a pattern of behaviour and I’m sad to say everyone in the industry knows about it. _I_ certainly knew enough.” It is not easy, admitting that to Credence. “We just… let it go on because nobody who had proof was bold enough to step up. And my karma hurts when I think about that for too long. So…” Graves spreads out his hands. “I want to ruin him. Completely.”

Credence nods slowly and seriously. He looks like he’s thinking very hard indeed.

“I know you have a pretty strict moral code and all.” Graves feels guilty even looking at him. “So if you don’t want to be involved, or even know about it, I won’t drag you into it. But - there it is. I’m going to destroy him. As thoroughly as anyone was ever destroyed. And I can’t feel bad about it. Not when…” Graves swallows. “Not when he’s hurting you.”

“How are you going to do it?” Credence says softly.

“I have a lot of friends,” Graves says. “One of them is currently putting together what I am assured will be a terrific piece of hard-hitting journalism on the career-long habits of Gellert Grindelwald as regards people over whom he holds power. Another one of them is going to publish it. In Rolling Stone, for the whole world to see. And…” He looks Credence in the eye. “Another one, if he wanted to, could provide first-hand evidence that these predatory practices are still going on today. Anonymously, of course, but. You could _bury_ him. If you’re willing to do it knowing he’ll know it’s you, and if your morals allow it.”

Credence blinks slowly, his dark eyes fathomlessly deep. “You might be surprised what my morals will allow, Mr Graves. And I’m not entirely sure that it wouldn’t be better - knowing he’d know it was me. Knowing... the prey animal he was so sure was helpless bit back.”

It probably makes him a terrible person, Graves thinks, but he’s so fucking proud of Credence at this moment.

Still, he won’t pressure him. “Think about it,” he says. “Let me know in the morning. We have plenty of other facts to go on if you decide to stay safe, and not one of us will think less of you.”

“I will think about it.” Credence gives Graves the suggestion of a smile. “Thank you.”

He devotes his attention to his sandwich for a minute, which is a good idea Graves decides to emulate, and all is quiet for a little while, just the simple appreciation of two hungry people for a good meal.

It’s nice, Graves thinks. Sitting here with Credence, as though they had no greater problems than a dusting of escaped flour on black wool suiting.

But it can’t last. All too soon, Credence is brushing crumbs off his fingers and looking regretfully at the dashboard clock. “I... should get back,” he says. “Did you bring my tapes?”

“Ah. Yes.” It’s a real wrench, more than he was expecting, to pull the tin box from under his seat, and he can’t help it: “Are you sure you couldn’t let me keep these? Just - keep them for you?”

Credence smiles - a little sad, but mostly… unbearably fond. “I’m so happy you liked them. You have no idea how much that means to me.” He takes the box from Graves’ hands. “Don’t worry, Mr Graves. They’ll be yours someday. God willing.” 

The way Credence clutches the box to his chest helps, though - like it’s the most important thing in the world. At least they agree on that.

\---

Four hours of his afternoon go by fast, even though there’s nothing in particular waiting for him after them. He feels more relaxed than he did before he saw Credence. It’s simple: the plan is in motion, the wheels are turning, and all Graves has to do is wait and watch everything drop into place, and the universe will come back into alignment.

He even turns up some classics in the car on the way home, hangs his hand out the window to feel the air over his fingers - it’s going to rain, he can see the banks of clouds massing in the distance, but he’ll get home first, in plenty of time that he can lie on the couch and watch the drops spatter on the windows. There is a strange and delicate peace in seeing so far into the future and knowing he’s safe.

By the time the sun’s down and the cold wind’s coming in off the mountains, he’s got a hot dinner in front of him; when the storm hits in earnest, he’s yawning on the couch and wondering if, maybe, he should just go to bed and let the rain lull him to sleep.

The blankets are soft and numerous and the mean gusts of wind make the rain sound like the surf, washing in in sheets like waves, and he’s drifting.

And then his phone rings, shrilling sharp into the edgeless dark, and he swears, and rolls to grab it.

“H’llo?” he says, the syllables still fuzzy at the edges.

For a moment he can’t hear anything on the other end. The hiss of wet tires on a wet road, or maybe just static on the line. And then there’s a gasping breath, and a voice so strained, so choked, he almost doesn’t recognise it.

“Mr - Graves?”

The voice breaks hard on the question. Another awful breath.

“Credence?” he says. “Credence, what’s happening? Talk to me.”

The noise from the other end of the phone suggests that quite possibly, Credence can’t.

He’s heard Credence cry. But not like this.

This is bad. This is _very_ bad, and Graves is suddenly the most awake he’s ever felt in his life.

“Where are you?” he says, already shoving his bare feet into shoes and trying to wrestle a coat on over his pajamas.

“Help,” he thinks he hears, although it’s mostly just a sob. “Please - please help me.”

“Okay. Okay. Where are you? I’m coming to get you.” It’s the only option. “Stay put and tell me where you are.”

“G-gas station. 67th - and - and Lake.”

“67th and Lake,” he repeats. “Okay. Are you safe there?”

“M-may-be? I don’t - I don’t know -”

“All right. Don’t move. Hold on.” He has to be calm, he has to _sound_ calm. Not like he has his own heart in his throat. “Can you stay on the phone with me?”

“No. P-payphone.”

“Okay,” he says again, and - stops, and turns back to the linen closet for an armful of towels. “I’m coming, Credence. I’m getting in the car now, and you’re gonna stay where you are, right where you are, and I’ll be there very soon. Very soon.”

He probably speeds. He has never cared less in his life. Credence’s call runs out of time before Graves is out of Laurel Canyon, and it’s a small miracle that in the lashing rain and pitch blackness Graves stays on the road and doesn’t hit anything, all the way down the numbered streets, feeling his heartbeat ticking off the seconds - seconds that Credence is alone. 

In time with the swish of the windshield wipers, he thinks, a prayer to anyone listening: _let him be there, let him be there, let him be there._

He sees the gas station, first, neons mostly sleeping but enough light to stand out in the washed darkness. Then - the phone booth, another set of coloured lights.

Huddled into the wall at the base of the booth, in what little cover it provides, is a sodden, surprisingly small spot of black.

Graves throws the Escalade over a sidewalk it’s probably not happy about, and pulls up four feet from the wall, close enough that he can’t see Credence anymore until he leans across and pushes the door open.

“Get in,” he yells, over the hammering of the rain.

It takes a moment for Credence to unfold himself, drowned and half-blind. He struggles up to his feet and in, and Graves puts the Escalade in park and reaches behind him for the towels.

He can’t guess at how long Credence has been outside, but he’s soaked to the skin and shivering so hard Graves can hear his teeth chatter even with his mouth closed. He’s blue around the lips. It hurts to look at him.

More importantly, he almost doesn’t seem aware of where he is. Graves turns the heater up to max, and piles the towels on Credence’s lap - three of his big bath sheets, soft and fluffy and above all very, very absorbent. “Dry off,” he says gently. “And maybe take off some of this wet stuff.” He reaches for the dripping sleeve of Credence’s thin jacket. “Here, I’ll help you -”

The instant Graves touches him, Credence flinches back and whimpers like his hand is a live wire. Immediately, Graves pulls back, both his hands up at his shoulders in a gesture of surrender. “Okay. Or don’t. I won’t make you.”

All the windows have fogged up completely, so they’re not going anywhere just yet. While they de-fog, Graves just looks at Credence for a minute, the way a paramedic looks at a triage patient.

He seems to have all his limbs, none of them broken. His clothes are wet, but only with water, and apart from a rip in the collar of his t-shirt they are whole. He might be ill. He’s probably sober. He’s definitely scared. He’s definitely freezing.

He’s not talking. He’s almost certainly crying, although there’s so much water on his face it’s hard to tell. And he hasn’t looked at Graves once yet.

Okay. Problems he can fix, in order -

\- if Credence won’t let him, none of them. But he’s going to have to try, before this kid shatters on him.

Credence called him. Therefore he must want him here. Therefore - it is up to Graves to make this work somehow.

“You’re safe now,” he says.

Credence gives a little tiny shake of his head. It might just be a shiver, but Graves doesn’t think it is.

“Do you need a doctor?”

Another little shake.

“Okay. Good. Then let me take you someplace warm and dry,” he says, keeping his voice low and soothing. “Anywhere you want to go. Should I take you home?”

Credence shrinks back against the door. “Please, no,” he whispers. “Please. I can’t.”

“Shit,” Graves says, and he didn’t really mean to say that out loud, but - “Okay. Okay, Credence. I won’t. I won’t, I promise. Hmm.” It’s past midnight, and with the state Credence is in, both physical and mental, his options are very few. “How about - how about my place?”

He’s prepared to offer to drive all night if he has to, if that’s what Credence needs him to do.

But Credence gives him the smallest nod.

“That’s okay?” Graves presses.

“Fine,” Credence whispers. “It’s fine.”

He doesn’t sound like it’s fine. He doesn’t sound like anything will ever be fine again.

“Okay,” Graves says, even though nothing about this is okay, because they can both play at this game.

He keeps his eyes on the road. Mostly. Every time he looks at Credence, Credence is staring blindly out the window, where there is nothing to see and it doesn’t matter. The blue in his lips is fading to bone-white. He’s still shaking, worse and worse, his arms wrapped tight around his own shoulders and over his own ribs, and Graves - can’t think, when he looks at him. He can’t.

They pass through the lights of the city and out into the big houses, farther and farther apart, where the rain gets heavy again because there’s less for it to hit on the way down.

In one of the dark stretches, there’s a sudden movement from the passenger seat: a seatbelt unbuckled, small frantic twitches of hands. “Pull over,” Credence says, hoarse and awful and desperate.

Graves yanks the wheel to the right and they’re on the gravel shoulder in a second; he puts the hazard lights on before they’ve even really stopped, and Credence sheds his cocoon of toweling and plunges out into the night, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rock the whole vehicle.

The hazards blink, blink, blink, and he gets zoetrope moments in the rear-view mirror: Credence standing, pacing, pacing, head bowed, hand on face, hand on mouth, hand on eyes, hiding, hiding, rain coming down on his bare white neck; pacing, pacing, stumbling, hands and knees, kneeling, bowed to the gravel. His shoulders heave.

Graves looks away, out over the dashboard into the rain ahead, to where his headlight beams dissipate into the night, and he waits. He doesn’t know how long. How long does a breakdown take? His own took two whole years after ‘92, and he remembers being not that much older than Credence, curled up in a hospital bed, scared he’d die. Scared he wouldn’t. Not being able to bear to be touched, because it reminded him he was flesh; not being able to bear not being touched, because if someone wasn’t touching him he stopped being real.

Credence is still on the gravel, his head resting on his crossed forearms. Graves can see the terrible staccato of his breathing in the knobs of his spine, standing out through his saturated clothes.

If he wanted Graves to hear him he’d have stayed in the car. So Graves doesn’t get out, and he doesn’t go to him, even though he has to keep his own seatbelt buckled just to stop himself.

He waits, because he is old, and he understands, and when Credence needs a safe person again he will find Graves right where he left him, and that is the best thing he can do for him right now.

\---

Eventually the car door opens again, and Credence climbs in and hides himself under the towels. It’s not far to Graves’ house now, and they make the rest of the trip in silence, with Credence still staring out the window.

He’ll ask, later, he tells himself. Now is not the time.

Now, he holds doors, and plays tour guide, and suggests soothing things like warm showers and dry clothes and hot drinks until Credence finally nods at his shoes and heads for the guest bathroom.

Graves puts sheets on the guest bed, quickly and very inexpertly, but they’re on, so he’s shown a willingness to make the effort. He raids his own wardrobe for soft, comfortable things he would sleep in himself, and lays some out on the dressing table. Then, with the shower still going, he debates the merits of chamomile over cocoa for far longer than anyone needs to, and settles for cocoa because Credence probably needs the sugar more.

The shower stops while he’s mixing the cocoa. He’s sure Credence can hear the tinking of the spoon on the ceramic, but he makes it louder, like a cat with a bell. _If you want me, here I am. If you want to avoid me, here I am._

But after five minutes, he wanders past the guest room and sees that the door is still open, and the clothes are still laid out, and light still seeps from under the bathroom door.

“Credence,” he says, loud enough to carry. “There are dry clothes out here, and hot chocolate, if you want it. You can go anywhere in the house and do anything that pleases you. I’m going to bed - it’s very late - but if you need anything you can’t find, please, come wake me. I don’t mind.”

He waits for a minute, for any kind of acknowledgement. There is none.

He wants to sigh, but he doesn’t - he just lays his hand gently on the wood of the door. “Goodnight,” he says. He sets the mug down on the bedside table, and latches the bedroom door behind him with a click he makes very sure is audible.

His own door, he leaves slightly ajar.

His bed is much less comfortable than when he left it; he’s sure it’s all the thoughts in there with him now, and their myriad pointy edges.

What can have happened in the ten hours or so since he’s last seen Credence? He’d been so confident, in his own way, and now… 

The possibilities are everything from unsettling to downright horrifying, and the more he tries to push them away, the more they crowd in on him, until he feels like screaming. He grits his teeth and tells himself: _you will sleep_.

An hour later he is looking at the blinking digits of his alarm clock in a dazed sort of irritation when there’s a sound. A knock, so small and hesitant it almost can’t be heard.

At first he thinks he’s seen a ghost. But it’s only Credence, in Graves’ Berklee sweatshirt and grey cotton pajama pants, staring down at the carpet.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Graves says. “What do you need?”

In a voice Graves barely recognises, Credence says, “I - can’t be alone right now, can I just - can I -”

Graves pats the bed next to him. “Stay,” he says simply. “It’s a big bed. I don’t mind.”

Credence takes a deep and shuddering breath, and Graves is sure he’s going to turn and run, but he doesn’t. Instead he steps cautiously across the floor as though it might become lava under him.

It’s a _very_ big bed. Graves could sleep lengthwise if he ever wanted to, without the slightest problem. So when Credence rolls himself under the covers, with his back to Graves, it’s almost like he isn’t even there. He is so slight, and so quiet.

The only thing that gives him away is the still-constant waves of shivers.

Graves argues with himself for a very, very long time before he finally reaches out - not to clasp, or to hold: just to brush the backs of his knuckles ever so lightly against Credence’s shoulderblade.

And the shivers stop - for the space of a held breath, and come back worse, and Graves realises Credence is crying. Again. Still. Ruthlessly stifled, as much as he can; probably how he’s cried for most of his life.

Neither of them say a word, and neither of them move any closer. But Graves keeps his hand against Credence’s back until Credence finally, _finally_ falls asleep.

It takes him almost another hour to follow.

\---

When Graves’ alarm goes, he slaps it into silence and lies there groggy and disoriented for several seconds, trying to fit himself back into his body. It’s far harder than it should be. Everything hurts, for a start - the chilly, slow ache of things wrenched and not put back right soon enough. But who had time to pay attention to any of that last night.

He contemplates not getting up at all, just staying in what little measure of comfort he has here and hoping that his own body heat is enough to make his muscles let go. But the bed next to him is empty, the covers straightened, and that is enough to remind him with a sick little lurch of adrenaline - somewhere outside of this bed, there is someone he needs to find.

It’s a big, cold world, but he doesn’t have to get through very much of it. Credence is sitting on his sofa, poised as if expecting at any moment that someone will tell him to get up, to leave, to stop poisoning the room with his presence. And indeed, the instant he sees Graves he hops guiltily to his feet.

“Sit, sit,” Graves says wearily. “Coffee?” The percolator has a timer on it, and it’s just chugging to a stop.

“No. Thank you.” Credence addresses this to his knees. “I - I’m sorry I’m still -” He gestures to Graves’ clothes, sleep-rumpled, which he is still wearing. “It’s just, mine are still wet, and -”

“Jesus, Credence,” Graves sighs, and shoves a hand into his hair. “Don’t apologise to me. You have nothing to apologise for. You can _keep_ those, for all I care. Although I’d probably recommend something warmer. I don’t think it’s going to be a very nice day.”

He bends to reach into the fridge for milk; the stab in half a dozen intercostals and the bones they hold makes him grunt, and straighten too abruptly, which only makes it worse. He doesn’t clutch at them, because he’s learned too thoroughly that that is also deeply unhelpful, but he can’t help the hiss of pain.

“ _Shitfire_ ,” he grits out, through the clench of his teeth, and grabs the edge of the counter to distract himself. “Okay. Fuck. Okay.”

It’s slow to ease. And when he raises his head again, Credence is - still not looking directly at him, but there’s such stark worry on his face. 

“I’m all right,” he says, even though he’s not actually terribly sure about that. “I - don’t think I’ll go in to work today, though. Do you need to be anywhere? I can drive you in -”

“No,” Credence says, hard and vicious. “I - there’s nowhere I need to be. There’s nowhere I can go. Nowhere that wants me -” He shoves a fist against his mouth.

“Hey, hey,” Graves protests, and comes around the counter. He doesn’t touch Credence, not after last night, but he holds out a hand to hover a few inches from Credence’s shoulder. “ _I_ want you. Here. If I haven’t made that clear enough, I’m sorry. But you’re welcome - you’re _wanted_ here for as long as you need. Okay?”

A tear slides down Credence’s cheek.

Very carefully, Graves sits down next to him, still not touching, but close enough to if he wanted to. “You know,” he says gently, “if you lose any more fluids you’re going to need a drip. Come on, at least let me make you a drink.”

Credence sniffs sharply and nods. Okay. That’s something. He can work with that.

He gets back up, and assembles a cup of tea - the chamomile he passed over last night, liberally dosed with honey - along with his own coffee.

Their fingers brush when Graves hands Credence his cup. Credence’s hands are terribly cold, and Graves isn’t at all surprised when he immediately wraps both of them around the nearly-burning heat of the mug.

“Now.” Graves sits back down and tilts his head so that he can see Credence’s face a little better. “I don’t want to ask. I really don’t. But I also don’t want to assume, and I think that’s probably going to be worse in the long run, if I do. So. What can you tell me about what happened last night?”

Credence squares his shoulders up a little, and takes a deep breath. “After I left you,” he says hoarsely. “I was - I was prideful, and I. I thought I could maybe, I thought - I was so sure I could see the end of this. After what you said. So when he asked me into his office at five, I felt. Different. Not like me. Like someone who could - ask for more. For better. Who didn’t have to just take what was given, bad or good.” He shivers. “He didn’t like it. He was looking at me like - like he knew, and I think he did, I think he did know. And when he asked me what was going on, why my songs were so bad when I played so well live, he didn’t want to hear my excuses, he knew I was lying. And then he - he _smiled_ , and. And he said it didn’t really matter what - what _shit_ I produced -” He’s gulping back tears. “Just so long as I - gave him - w-what he was paying for.”

Graves feels his hackles rise, and blows a long breath out through his nose to force himself back to calm.

“He pushed me,” Credence says, the words spilling out of him now. “He pushed me onto his desk and - I remembered _you_ , and I pushed him back. I t-told him _no_ , Mr Graves, I told him - but he slapped me, and grabbed my collar, and - and I started _yelling_ , telling him he couldn’t, and then - his secretary came in to see what was going on, and he, he told her to call security, and these four big men showed up and threw me out on the street with my bag and my coat and told me if I came back they’d have me arrested.”

“Credence,” Graves says. He is queasy with hatred and rage and disgust and _I remembered you_ , _I remembered you_ , because at the heart of it - this is _his_ fault. “I’ll - I’ll fucking _end_ him, I swear to God -”

Credence holds up a hand, and Graves falls silent. Credence doesn’t need his input now. He’s not helping. He’s not _capable_ of helping.

“So I went home,” Credence says, and there is an edge like anger oozing into his tone, the tears pushed out by something much worse - an awful, brittle, almost conversational lightness. “And I walk in the front door and there’s Ma, on the stairs. And she says to me, ‘do you have something to tell me, Credence,’ like I’m six years old and I’ve sassed the teacher.” He wipes his eyes sharply. “I said no, I didn’t. And she comes down, angrier and angrier, colder and colder: ‘That’s not what Mr Grindelwald just told me,’ she says.”

Graves’ hands clench around his coffee cup.

“She’s talking about how he called her, and he told her everything, and I say ‘what do you mean’ because I really don’t know what he told her - and she hits me as hard as she can, knocks me down, and.” His mouth goes very white around the edges. “‘He told me,’ she says,” and Graves can hear Mary Lou’s slow, quiet, vicious menace in Credence’s voice, “‘that you _kissed_ him. That you tried to _seduce_ him. You vile, wicked - _sinful_ -’” He waves his hand to indicate that there was more in the same vein. “‘I always knew there were demons in you,’ she says. ‘And you chose this good, this _merciful_ man -’ and I don’t know what happened, I just - I started _laughing_ , I couldn’t help it, and she slapped me again. And.”

He swallows, and his voice goes very flat. “My bag. Fell off my shoulder. Hit the floor, crash, and. And the box falls out.”

Graves feels his stomach drop.

“She sees it. And she grabs it. ‘What else are you hiding from me, you deceitful snake?’ And she opens it, and.” He swallows again. “I guess. I guess she must have - figured out how long it would have taken to make those, and - I don’t know. She pulls one out of the case. ‘He _said_ you were trying to convince him to make you famous, vainglorious child. Because singing for God’s glory could never have been enough for you.’ And she. She starts ripping the tape out of the cassette, as she’s talking.” 

“ _No_ ,” Graves breathes, in absolute horror - and then shuts his mouth, hard, because he’s only making it worse. Credence doesn’t need _his_ pain to deal with.

Credence is shaking again, like he was in the car last night. So hard that the tea slops over the edge of his cup. He doesn’t seem to notice. Graves reaches out and lifts the cup out of his hands, even though his own are shaking too, and puts both their cups on the table. He wants, desperately, to take Credence’s empty hands and hold them. But he doesn’t.

“She goes through each tape, tearing them all apart. As she’s telling me how he’s so kind, that he had to fire me, of course, but it wouldn’t affect his relationship with New Salem, with her, of course it wouldn’t, it wasn’t _her_ fault her son was a - a revolting, unnatural pervert, after all I’m not even really _her_ son am I, just adopted, and anyone could accidentally adopt a monster into their home, she didn’t know - and I can’t even feel anything, it’s like it. It wasn’t _real_. Like I was dreaming, and any second I’d wake up and none of this would have happened - and then she pulls _Brimstone and Firestrike_ out and looks at it like. Like it was the most disgusting thing she’d ever seen in her life.”

Under the mess of feelings Graves is struggling to keep down, a tiny bubble of pride.

“I.” Credence pulls his knees up against his chest and hugs them for a long moment. “I don’t know what - it was like I was possessed, or something, all of a sudden. I just - she’d just destroyed everything, all of my tapes, all of my work, and I hadn’t lifted a finger to stop her, but I _couldn’t let her have that_.” He shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I tried to take it from her. I grabbed her hand. She threw me against the wall - I hit my head, and I fell down, and I couldn’t get up again - I felt. Too dizzy. Too sick.” He wraps his own hand around the back of his neck and squeezes hard. “I watched her rip into the tape, and she’s screaming about how I’m not her child, I’m a demon in human form, and she won’t have me in the house ever again in case I corrupt the children, she _casts me out_ -” He sounds like he can’t even believe the words he’s saying. “I… just. I just. I just - it was like I was _losing my mind_. I almost started to believe her. Like, maybe I _am_ a demon. Maybe I’m _evil_.”

“Credence, no.” Graves is begging. He doesn’t care. He’s officially had all he can take. “Don’t listen to her. Please. You know it’s not true.”

Credence doesn’t seem to hear him. “So eventually I just. I just ran. I ran until I fell down, and then I got up again and I kept running. And when I couldn’t run anymore, I called you.” He swallows. “I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to drag you into it. But I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did the right thing,” Graves says vehemently. “My God, Credence, I - I want. I want to do so many things, nearly all of them violent - but I _won’t_ , I promised you I won’t punch anyone else, but. I’m so _glad_ you called me. That was. That was good.”

“Was it?” Credence says tonelessly. “Now I’m just a burden on you.”

Graves rocks back, physically shaken. “No - _no_. You’re not. You could _never_ be.”

Credence wipes his face with the sleeve of his shirt. He’s sickly pale, under the blotches from crying, and Graves just - wants to _hold_ him. 

“I think. I think I need to lie down for a little while. If that’s all right.” Credence wobbles on his feet, when he stands, and Graves reaches out to steady him. But Credence pulls away from his hands. “I’m fine,” he says, too tired to really snap.

“Please,” Graves tries. “We can make this right, I swear to you, Credence -”

“No, Mr Graves.” Credence doesn’t look back. “I don’t think we can.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.
> 
> But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fucking _sign_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay. my creativity is in retrograde.

Graves calls in to work. He’s exhausted clear through to his bones and he needs more painkillers than will make it wise to drive. And truly, the main deciding factor: he doesn’t want to be there. He wants to be here, where he can rest his aching ribs and his aching heart, and not where he would have to pretend that he could concentrate on anything other than Credence Barebone.

He doesn’t feel quite as awful as Credence looked, but Credence puts himself to bed and stays down all morning, and Graves thinks this is wise enough that he does much the same, except he lies on the couch with all the cushions stacked up under him like he’d done that first couple of very bad days. It keeps him within earshot of the slightly open guest room door. Not that there’s anything to hear.

Graves is too restless to settle properly at first. Credence’s silence is almost disconcerting, on the heels of the look he’d had in his eyes when he’d left the room - it’s _too_ quiet. So Graves gives in and lets himself check, every now and then, lingering just long enough to see that he is still asleep, still curled into a ball with his back to the door. Still breathing. Still there.

He pushes back at the anxious thought that suggests that if he stops looking, those things might change. It’s reasonable to make sure Credence is okay. It’s even reasonable to pad in, silent in sock feet, and leave a glass of water and a couple of Advil on the bedside table, in exchange for the cup containing last night’s cocoa, stone cold and barely touched. 

What is not reasonable is to keep any kind of a vigil, even from the living room. He needs to rest too. So he makes himself lie down, and run through, in chronological order, every drummer, bassist, and guitarist who’s ever played for Whitesnake, starting over at the beginning when he forgets one.

Inevitably, he falls asleep somewhere between Viv Campbell and Warren DeMartini, with a weak cloud-filtered sunbeam across his chest.

He wakes up warm, and wonders for a fuzzy moment if the sun has come out properly. It hasn’t. But there’s an empty glass in the drying rack next to the sink, and the lap blanket from the armchair in Graves’ study is spread out over him.

He can’t quite help the incredulous smile sneaking onto his face as he folds it up. This didn’t come here on its own - it would have had to have been looked for. Which probably means he’d looked either pathetic or tormented in his sleep, and that’s unfortunate, but - here he has, in his hands, the soft, fleecy, blue evidence that Credence… well. _Cares about him_ is probably putting it too strongly, but _spared a thought for him_ anyway. A repayment - no. Not a repayment, and he shouldn’t think in those terms either, but… it’s something. It’s a gesture. And… 

It’s hope, is what it is. It’s hope. 

Credence, he finds, is out on the pool deck, leaning on the corner of the railing and looking out over the valley. It’s mostly green after the rain, and the wind is a little bit warmer.

Graves makes as much noise as he can opening the door so as not to startle him.

“I guess you’ve had a look around,” he says. “Do you like my folly? I bought it with my share of the royalties when _Seven Doors_ went platinum. One of the only good decisions I made that year.” He comes to stand next to Credence. “People keep telling me I’m not famous enough to live up here anymore, but I like the view.”

“It’s a very nice house,” Credence says quietly. “And a very nice view.”

“It’s too much house, honestly. It’ll be nice to have someone else in it.”

He means this, truly - it gets lonely, sometimes, even though Graves is not usually prone to loneliness. There is more than enough space for him to accommodate one guest, even for an indefinite amount of time.

But Credence looks down into the valley as though he’s said something uncomfortable.

“You’re very kind, to have me here,” he says eventually. “I promise I won’t outstay my welcome. I’ll go into the city this afternoon and look for work, if you’ll tell me where I can catch a bus. I’m sure I can get something.”

Graves gives the bruise-dark circles under Credence’s eyes a very hard look. “Not today,” he says, instead of _not on your life_. “Give yourself a little time. You’ve been through a lot, the last few weeks. I’ll make some calls tomorrow, if you want - I’m sure I know someone who’s looking for an extra set of hands who’d be glad to have someone as hardworking and conscientious as you. But today I don’t want you to worry about that. You still don’t look well. Why don’t you relax a little? It’s not a very nice day for a swim, but I have a lot of books and a lot of records and a truly ridiculously large TV.”

Credence shakes his head. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

And then a terrific idea occurs to Graves. “ _I_ know what you should have a look at,” he says. “Come with me.”

Credence follows him downstairs, to the lower level of the house that holds the garage and all the storage - and something else.

“I know you haven’t been in here yet,” Graves says, as he flips the cover of the keypad lock up. “4991X,” he recites, as he punches in the digits, and he glances meaningfully at Credence to make sure he’s got that. 

The door beeps, satisfied, and he swings it open, flicking the light on. “Ta-dah. The home studio, and my dragon hoard.”

There are more expensive, more complete setups that he knows of amongst even the mid-range musicians he counts as friends, never mind the stars. But it’s a big enough room, very well soundproofed to pacify the neighbours, with wooden floors with rugs and acoustic panelling on the walls for just the right amount of bounce and just the right amount of dampening. There’s a drum kit, already miked, a Roland and a Yamaha synth, and a couple of freestanding vocal mics lined up against the wall; a little booth for isolations, a mixing desk of moderate complexity, and a shoulder-high wall of road-scarred Marshall amps, Graves’ trusty companions.

The most important thing, though, is the glass-front cabinet on the back wall. The heavy velvet curtain is pulled back so the downlights gleam on the curved shoulders of no less than a dozen neatly racked electric guitars, a couple of acoustics and electroacoustics, and a pair of Fender basses. 

“Temperature- and humidity-controlled,” Graves explains. “I sold a few after we split and I didn’t need them, but I held onto my favourites.” He smiles at Credence, who is still looking poleaxed at the setup. “Come here, I want to introduce you to someone.”

Bemused, Credence comes to him as Graves opens the cabinet and lifts down a glossy ebony-black Les Paul with mother-of-pearl and silver inlays up the custom black fretboard and the wear patterns and chips of many, many nights out. He snags a strap from the bottom of the cabinet and fits it onto the strap buttons. “I think you may be acquainted with my wife,” he says, and holds her out to Credence. “Credence, this is Raven - Raven, Credence. She’s the guitar I played on ‘Shadowplay’. And nearly everything else.”

Credence reaches out a trembling hand, and too late, too late, Graves sees the way his eyes are brimming and realises just how delicate his newfound calm had been. His fingertips brush the place on Raven’s hip where the finish has been worn away by years of friction and wrist cuffs and Graves’ own sweat, and the bare wood shines through. And then he chokes out, “I’m sorry, I _can’t_ \- I’ve got nothing left, _nothing_.” And in a few quick steps he is out of the room and out of sight.

Graves hears him thump up the stairs, and sighs, feeling himself deflate like a popped balloon. Damn it all. 

“I’m sorry too,” he says, to the guitar. “It’s not you, old girl. It’s not even him. It’s me, and my damn fool bright ideas. Never mind. Another time.” He pulls the strap off, drops a quick kiss on her headstock and hangs her back in her place.

Then he shuts everything up and goes after Credence.

He is too slow to be able to do much. Like the night before, he finds himself staring at a locked bathroom door.

“Credence,” he says, because he has to say something. “I’ll find a way to get you back your guitar. And your gear. I - didn’t think. I’m sorry.”

Credence, who has nothing, materially or emotionally, who is depending on the generosity of Percival Graves for even so much as dry clothes, does not answer him.

Graves goes out to the kitchen and assembles two ham and cheese sandwiches, one of which he leaves on a plate on Credence’s bedside table like he’s done with everything else. And then he takes the other to his study, props his chin on his hand, and starts making lists.

Clothes, first of all. He leaves the list again, and pulls a dozen or so things from his closet to lay in a neat pile on Credence’s bed. They’re much of a height, even if Credence is narrower everywhere; Graves’ clothes might not suit him, but they’ll be better than nothing, and this way at least he can choose.

Then: something to do. It may be a few days until he can secure Credence a job, which now seems like something of a priority, just so that he can start earning some money of his own. He doesn’t doubt Mary Lou took every penny of his salary from Blackwelt. So, in the meantime - a half-dozen light and non-intimidating books, and a selection of light and non-intimidating DVDs, are stacked invitingly on the coffee table. He considers bringing the steel-stringed electroacoustic guitar up from downstairs and leaving it out too, but decides that that wound might be too fresh.

Third, and most difficult for Graves, who doesn’t like unsolved problems: he will give Credence the one thing he seems to need more than anything else right now. Space.

And so, even though there’s nothing much for him to do there, he stays in his study with his laptop, and tries very hard to think of any way short of burglary to retrieve any of Credence’s things before Mary Lou can do anything irrevocable with them.

He hears Credence moving around a bit, and when he goes out to the kitchen with his empty plate, Credence is sitting on the couch, staring into _Three Men In A Boat_. Graves just nods, doesn’t comment on how he isn’t turning the pages, and leaves again. If he wants to use Jerome K Jerome as a prop while he stares into space, that’s fine.

Around dinner time, he goes out and starts a pot of water for pasta. He makes a pretty mean speedy bolognese, if he does say so himself, although it is better when he has the time and the inclination to leave it to simmer for a few hours. In thirty minutes, he’s got an extremely reasonable sort of dinner ready, and sets out some plates on the breakfast bar.

“I thought we could just eat up here,” he says to Credence, who is still on the couch and hasn’t made much progress on the book. “If that’s all right with you.”

Credence looks up as though he’s only just realised Graves is even in the room.

“Oh,” he says. “I’m. Not really very hungry.”

Of course he isn’t. Graves makes himself smile. “That’s okay too. You can have as much or as little as you want.” He starts dishing up a plate for himself, hoping that perhaps watching him will entice Credence to join him.

He gets through the entire plate and Credence still hasn’t gotten up from the couch. Now he’s not even pretending to read, just staring bleakly out the window at the sunset.

“Should I leave some out for you?” Graves prompts.

And again, it’s as though he’d forgotten Graves was even there: he gives himself a little shake, and then puts the book down on the coffee table.

“No, thank you,” he says. “I think… I think I might go to bed early. I’m… very tired.”

“Okay,” Graves says, because it’s really all he can say. It’s _very_ early for bed. But he did tell Credence to relax, after all, and what could be more relaxing than sleep? “You know where I am, if you need anything.”

“Goodnight, Mr Graves,” Credence says, as he leaves the room, and… at least that’s better than last night.

He tries very hard, as he puts the food away, to also put away the slight sense of resentment. He can’t, he _cannot_ hold this against Credence - and he won’t make him do anything, not even eat, if he doesn’t want to, so Graves just has to accept that he will be turned down sometimes. No matter how much he was hoping for Credence to come up and sit beside him, quiet and companionable, and share in what he had offered.

He leaves the books and DVDs just where Credence dropped them, and goes back to his study for a few more hours, until it’s late and his eyes are stinging from having been open too long.

He thinks he’ll fall asleep hard tonight, the sheer cliff-drop as soon as his head hits the pillow that comes with being slightly drugged and completely worn out.

He does wake up, once - and he’s absolutely certain that he’s not alone anymore, that there’s another person breathing soft and steady in the bed next to him, another body leaching heat into the sheets, trembling with life and all its catastrophes, tiny and large, and he wants to reach out and bring them up against him before sleep swallows him up again.

But when he wakes up in the morning, there’s nothing at his fingertips but cold fabric, neatly arranged, and he thinks - he must have dreamed it.

Although he’s not entirely sure that the pillows were _there_ , or that the blanket had been tucked down like _that_. 

Never mind. If he was there, he isn’t anymore, and it would be better if Graves assumes he never had been.

\---

He doesn’t go in - leaves a message for Queenie, with his gravelliest morning voice, and pretends to be contagious - but he does work, and after putting everything off yesterday, he’s got a full day ahead of him. It’s Thursday, and Thursday is only ever the prelude to the madness of Friday, so he elects to spend the morning shovelling out his inbox and dealing with everything he’s put off to do later, because now is as good a later as any other later.

But at 9.02, his cellphone rings.

“I’m sorry to make you talk if you’re not well,” Queenie says, “but - I have to tell you something. You know how I’ve been going to those prayer meetings of Credence’s?”

“Yes,” he says. And he realises - he hasn’t told her. But of course he hasn’t told anyone.

“I went last night, and - he wasn’t there.” She sounds genuinely distressed. “So I asked his little sister, and she said to me that he’s ‘in disgrace’ and he’s ‘run away’. I don’t even want to imagine what that actually means, Mr Graves. But she asked - she said, since I’m his friend - if I hear from him, if I find out where he is, she’s really worried about him. Well, _I’m_ really worried about him. Have _you_ heard from him?”

She’s so good. He asked her to do him a selfish favour, and here she is, truly upset. He can’t let it go on. 

He closes his eyes, because somehow it makes it easier. “Queenie, keep it quiet, please, but - he’s with me.”

“He’s - with _you_ \- what? Percival -”

“He’s with me,” Graves repeats. “It’s not my story to tell, but some things have happened, some terrible things - and he wasn’t safe. So he’s staying here. And I’m staying here with him, for now.”

“Oh my God. Is he okay? Are _you_ okay?”

“I’m - obviously not really sick,” he admits. “I jarred my ribs very badly yesterday - that was real - but they’re better today. He’s… I don’t know what to call it. I’m trying to help, although I’m not sure how much good I’m actually doing. But he’s safe here.”

She gives a low whistle, mixed relief from old worries and pressure from new ones. “Wow. Well. Would you - would you tell him I’m glad he’s safe? And - I guess I don’t know now if he’ll want anyone from his family to know. But if he does, tell him I’m happy to pass on messages, or anything.”

“I will,” he says. “Queenie - thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Will you be in tomorrow?”

“Probably not. We’ll… see how I’m feeling.”

“I gotcha.” He can hear her smiling. “Call me if you need anything. Talk to you later.”

He leaves his phone on his desk, takes a deep breath, and heads out to the living room, where he can hear the TV on low.

Credence is curled up in the corner of the couch, arms wrapped around one knee. He’s wearing Graves’ favourite sweater, the deep forest green cable-knit pullover that is one of the warmest pieces of clothing Graves has ever owned. It swamps him a little, but he’s got his fingers tucked into the sleeves and it takes Graves’ breath away how much the sight makes him want to smile.

For the sake of the distant blankness on Credence’s face, he confines it to a soft glow. “That was Queenie, on the phone,” he says. “She was asking after you. She went to your Wednesday night meeting last night - Modesty told her you’d run away.”

“I suppose that’s the cover story,” Credence says dully, without looking away from the point in space he’s been staring at. “Ma would hardly tell her I’d been kissing men.”

“She’s worried about you, your sister. Queenie was too. She really likes you, you know.”

“She’s very kind.” Credence rests his cheekbone on his knee.

“I told her you were here.” Credence stiffens, and Graves adds quickly, “In the strictest of confidence, of course. She won’t breathe a word to anyone without your permission. But… if you _want_ her to tell Modesty - she says she can.”

“I’ll… think about it.” 

That seems like the best answer he’s likely to get, so he nods. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No, Mr Graves. Thank you. I’m fine here.”

“Let it be as you say.” Graves sketches a bow. “I’ll be in my study if you need me.”

He forces his mind back to the minutiae of his job, and it’s comforting, somehow. The world goes on, even if he doesn’t really know what to do about the part of it that’s sitting on his couch, growing increasingly important. Other bits of it are still more or less under his control.

Credence vanishes when Graves comes out to heat up dinner, and Graves would really like to ask him what he’s _eating_ , but he must be foraging something. Logically, he must be. There’s plenty of food in the house. He’s fine. Graves won’t hassle him.

He’s sitting at the breakfast bar, nursing a hot chocolate with a nip of Bailey’s in it for dessert, when a shape makes itself known at the corner of his peripheral vision.

“Mr Graves?” Credence says. He’s worrying at the sleeves of Graves’ sweater.

“Yes?”

“May I please make a phone call?” It sounds rehearsed, like he’s been saying it over and over to himself to psych himself up to actually ask. “I’d like to try to speak with Ma and find out how things stand, now that she’ll be calmer.”

“Of course.” Graves waves at the phone on the kitchen wall as he slides off the barstool. “My number is unlisted and I have a Caller ID block, so you don’t have to worry that she’ll know where you are or who you’re with unless you give her my address. Which I would rather you didn’t.”

“She’ll probably know.” Credence drifts towards the phone, looking at it as though it’s a snake. “She usually makes excellent guesses when I’ve been up to anything she wouldn’t approve of.”

“If she approved of me,” Graves says, “I think I’d contemplate death as the most reasonable way out.”

He leaves Credence still staring at the phone, and shuts himself up in his study with some music on to give Credence some privacy. But even _Symphony of Destruction_ isn’t quite enough to cover the shouting:

“Ma, _please_ \- no, I - _listen, Ma_ -”

And then there is a _scream_ , and a shattering, scattering crash, and Graves hits stop on the music and is out the door so fast he skids on the parquetry.

There are pieces of telephone strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other, impact ejecta radiating from the centre: the man hunched over Graves’ kitchen counter. 

Credence breathes in a high, painful whine, and clenches his fist; blood drips onto the granite.

“Hey, hey, hey, shh, shh,” Graves says, keeping his voice so light, so easy, as he picks his way through the debris. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t move. Shit, who _hasn’t_ wanted to smash a phone. At least you did it properly.”

He reaches for Credence’s bleeding hand - and stops, seeing his bared, clenched teeth, his squeezed-shut eyes. “Can I touch you? I just want a look at what you did here - make sure you’re okay.”

Credence jerks his hand up towards Graves, chokes on another breath - whines -

“Shh, shh.” Very gently, Graves pries his fingers open. There’s a cut, a tear in the side of his hand where sharp-edged plastic must have bitten, but it’s not deep. He clenches his own hand over it to stop the bleeding. “You’re okay, Credence,” he murmurs. “Everything’s fine. It’s okay.”

Credence’s eyes snap open, and for the first time in two days, he looks directly at Graves - looks him right in the eye, despite the tears that race down his cheeks. “ _How_ ,” he growls. “How can everything _possibly_ be fine, everything’s _not_ fine -”

Graves shakes his head. “You’re here,” he says, and he feels _naked_ , in the worst and most vulnerable way, but all he can be right now, in the face of that look, is honest: “You’re safe. And that’s all that matters to me.”

Credence _sobs_ , like something’s tearing itself out of his chest - and then he throws himself at Graves, wraps his arms around his shoulders and clings as though it’s keeping him alive. One fist thumps weakly against Graves’ shoulderblade, a last show of defiance. And then the starch goes out of him, and he’s weeping, weeping like a child, his whole weight hanging off Graves as he shudders and gulps and chokes.

Very carefully, Graves eases them both down to the floor, until Credence is half-draped, half-cradled against him. He presses his cheek to the top of Credence’s head. It feels right, there. It feels like it should never have been anywhere else.

“Shh,” he says. “Shh, sweetheart. Shh.”

They stay there, like that, for quite a long time. Graves’ legs go numb, and then dead; his ribs hurt. But Credence still hasn’t let go of him, and the one time Graves had shifted his arms around him Credence had whimpered “ _don’t_ ” and clutched him tighter. Graves had had no intentions of letting go anyway, but now he just… he can’t. This is where he belongs, this is his place in the world: on the cold tiles of his kitchen floor, leaning back against the cabinets, with Credence Barebone’s wet face pressed against his neck, and Graves’ own hands holding him there, protected and safe.

That night there is no pretense, no hiding, no dodging; Credence comes to bed with Graves, unable to fully let go of him for more than a minute or two without his fragile composure crumbling. There is no question of it being anything more than sleeping, together, and in fact they don’t even undress; but there is also absolutely no question of either of them being willing to leave the other’s side.

And if he is the only person in the world who wants to comfort Credence and keep him close, at least as far as Credence can see, well - that is a problem Graves will have to tackle, eventually, but not tonight. Tonight they sleep, wrapped up in each other, with Credence’s head on Graves’ chest, his ear over Graves’ heart.

He might as well listen to it, Graves thinks. 

More of it belongs to him than he knows.

\---

The morning finds them still tangled, though less completely. Credence has rolled over in his sleep and is lying on his belly, with Graves’ hand trapped just under his ribs, where he can feel the rise and fall of his diaphragm.

Graves lies very still, for a few minutes, just to look at him.

Slack and soft, Credence’s face is rather lovely. He could do with a few more square meals and a better haircut, but underneath all the layers of protective wariness and suspicion, and with the hard chill of depression lifted for the moment - he thinks Credence could genuinely be fairly devastating.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. Graves has seen the heart of him - has _heard_ the heart of him. And that is what he fell in love with, really - not Credence’s face, pretty though it might be. It was the soul that lived in that music that got Graves, and it is the soul in that music that has been ripped away from him, with the rest of his old life.

And he is in love. There’s no denying it. Not anymore. Not even faced with the fact that Credence is in no shape to return it, and Graves can’t ask him to. Graves can’t ask him for anything - not when he’s taken so much from Credence already.

If he could give Credence his soul back… maybe they would be okay. 

Then, slowly, the way a trickle of water fills a bucket:

… He’s heard the tapes. 

He listened to them over and over. Enough to remember, with aching clarity, exactly how the lost music went.

He’s not Credence, and he doesn’t know how Credence did it, but. If Credence can’t do it right now...

Fuck’s sake, is he a musician or not?

Fuck’s sake, is he Vaal Graves, or isn’t he? Has he completely lost faith in his own skills, or hasn’t he? Or is he just a guy in a nice suit, with a nice haircut, and less soul than Credence has left to him, and nothing but rust where metal used to be?

He has to be more. He has to be more than that. If he can be more… maybe he can be enough.

He slides carefully out of bed - and how many times has Vaal Graves done this, slipped away from a warm and trustingly sleeping bedmate, because life beckoned and there was music to be played?

And just like he always used to, he finds a notepad, and scribbles quickly on it: _I’m downstairs. V x_

And just like he always used to, he bends over the mattress and kisses Credence ever so gently on the forehead, without waking him.

Barefoot, in jeans and a ratty Iron Maiden shirt, with his hair falling soft around his temples and a cup of coffee in his hand, he nods at the sunrise - _the sun salutation_ , he thinks, in Theseus’ posh voice, and then chuckles. He hasn’t remembered that in _years_. 

He hasn’t talked to These in years either. He wonders if These even remembers the six weeks Des got really into yoga, and spent most of his time upside down against a wall with Serp blowing weed smoke at him until he got the giggles and fell over.

He shakes his head at himself as he goes down the stairs. It’s truly a miracle any of them survived with as much brain left as they did.

He shuts the studio door behind him, and locks it. The air in here smells like guitars, sweet wood and urethane varnish and the sour-metal tang of tarnished strings. On the way past, he wakes up the mixing desk, with its attendant tape deck and laptop, and powers on one of the amps. He lays out just about every pedal he owns, makes a face at the order they’re in and redoes it, grabs a notepad and a music stand for jotting down cue points.

And finally, he opens the glass-fronted cabinet, and takes the so-familiar weight of his favourite guitar off the rack and onto his shoulders, checks her tuning, and clicks a lead into the jack.

“All right, old girl,” he tells her, as he spreads his feet wide and curls his toes into the carpet. “Time to save a life.”

\---

It doesn’t come easy. He’s down a lot of speed and skill, and more importantly, a lot of calluses; and as his hands warm up and the skill comes back, the blisters rise on every fingertip. He pulls the bottle of rubbing alcohol out of the cleaning kit in the cabinet and soaks his fingers every time he stops to listen back.

By the time he’s three hours in he’s made a mostly futile stab at half a dozen of Credence’s songs, just sketches of the masterpieces he remembers, and he’s only bleeding a little. He has two missed calls from Queenie and one from Tina. He goes on.

At four hours, he’s split three blisters, badly enough that the fretboard is slippery and he has to shift his grip to keep from pressing the strings into open wounds, and there’s sweat in his eyes, and his ribs are throbbing from bending over the guitar, and he’s not having any fun anymore. There’s something he just - can’t capture. Maybe he’s missing a note in the chords, a line that he wasn’t smart enough to pick out, and he thinks of the jazz notes Credence dropped into that demo like it was nothing, like his brain just handed him the perfect flavours. Graves isn’t tone-deaf, far from it, but his instincts were built on a different base. He knows what Slayer would do, what Anvil would do, what Alice Cooper would do, what Motörhead and Judas Priest would do.

He doesn’t know what Credence would do.

He goes on.

Five hours and there’s almost nowhere left on his left hand that can stand to touch the strings. He’s starving, he’s furious at himself, the smell of rubbing alcohol has burned itself into his sinuses, and the songs _still aren’t any damn good_. Or rather, they’re amazing songs, but he can’t fucking play them. And they aren’t going to come good. Not in his hands.

He has to face it. He’s beaten. He’s failed.

He dunks his stigmata in the alcohol one more time, watching the clear liquid cloud pinkish and sniffing back the tears of pain, because he wants to cry, all right, but he’s not fucking going to. And then the CD burner spits out the tangible evidence of his insufficiency, and he drops Raven onto a chair and blows out a deep breath and heads upstairs.

Credence is on the couch, wearing his own jeans and Graves’ favourite sweater. Graves can hardly bear to look at him.

“Oh, you’re - back,” Credence says hesitantly, “it’s one o’clock, did you… want lunch? I was... thinking of making some, and -”

Graves… can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t, he can’t, he’s just hit a tensile limit he didn’t even know he _had_ , and he tosses the CD into Credence’s lap.

“Here,” he says. “It’s shit. I’m sorry.”

And he puts his back to the confusion on Credence’s face, because he’ll find out soon enough, won’t he - he’ll work out that Graves can’t fix anything, and Graves needs to be somewhere else when he does so that he doesn’t have to see Credence understand.

He goes out to the pool deck, because it’s as not-there as anywhere else could be, sufficiently out of the way.

He’s not famous enough for this fucking view, and he’s not good enough to be famous enough for this fucking view.

He drops onto one of the sun loungers and stares out into the lush green valley without seeing it at all.

Exactly six and a half minutes later, the sliding door hisses in its track.

There are half a dozen soft steps.

And then Credence is on his knees with his face in Graves’ lap.

He’s crying again, which is just _perfect_ , since all Graves seems to be able to do is make him cry. But he grabs for Graves’ hand, and Graves is so weak, so weak; he lets Credence take it, as damaged and tired and talentless as it is, and he curls up over Credence as best as he can.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“ _No,_ ” Credence chokes out. “They’re - oh my _God_ , I can’t - you did that for _me_?”

He hears Queenie, in his head: “ _Percival Graves. When were you planning on telling him you’re in love with him?_ ”

_Now,_ he thinks. _Now._

“Credence,” he says, like the damned soul he is. 

“Val,” Credence whispers. “Oh, _Val_.” And he presses Graves’ blistered, bleeding, burning fingertips to his mouth. Again. Again.

Maybe… maybe he doesn’t have to say it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival Graves' life got a lot less exciting when his metal band imploded and he went to work A&R for his friend Sera's record label, MaC USA.
> 
> But the mysterious young guitarist playing under the name "Obscurus" is about to change all that. Assuming Graves can fucking _sign_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's probably an appropriate lyric for this, but anyway - i give you the second most metal gift (after a box of fucking nothing):
> 
> the end.

The laws of physics will bend for any sufficiently determined person or persons, when it concerns fitting two bodies into a space designed for just one. So: two fully grown men, one slender but neither of them particularly small, and one sun lounger.

They could sit next to each other, but that isn’t what either of them want right now. They are too upset, both of them, and too greedy for the simple comfort of contact to stay that way, or to be careful about how much they fall into each other. Their bodies remember how it felt to lie next to each other, so close that there’s no room between them for anything, and it’s giving in, but nothing less will do.

So they solve the puzzle by lying back, tucking Credence’s shoulder under Graves’ arm, and hooking one of Credence’s legs over one of Graves’ so that he can’t fall backwards but his weight isn’t too much on Graves’ ribs. The gnawing need is placated: the warmth trapped between their chests makes Graves’ breathing easier than it’s been in weeks, and Credence is calmer with Graves’ arm around him.

“There,” Graves says softly, tugging Credence’s arm over himself like a blanket.

Credence nods against his shoulder, sniffs faintly, and settles with his fingers curled loosely around Graves’ bicep.

“The songs. My songs.” He clears his throat. “I’ve never heard them like that before. I didn’t listen to them all - I had to - I needed to. To see you, to. To be. With you. But - you changed them.”

“I know.” Graves stares up at the sky. “I didn’t mean to. I thought I remembered them better.”

“No, not - not like that, that’s not what I meant.” Credence squeezes Graves’ arm. “I’ve never heard anyone else play my music. It’s - it’s so different, but it’s so. I don’t know. You put things in there that I wouldn’t have thought of. It makes me want to try playing it your way - just to see if I could. If I could make them sound that...” He huffs. “Confident. You always have that - you’re so _solid_ , so _sure_.”

Graves laughs despairingly. “Shit, Credence, I’ve never been less confident. Your music is so complex, and I’m just - brute-forcing it. Like a Mack truck trying to do ballet.”

“I… think I’d watch that.” Credence pets him. “But the point - what I was trying to say. Your recordings aren’t bad. They’re _beautiful_.”

Graves shakes his head. “They’re nothing like what they should have been. I just wanted to... give you something you needed. It was selfish, honestly. I thought -”

“I know what you thought,” Credence says. “It’s what _I_ thought while I was woodshedding ‘Shadowplay’.”

He catches Graves’ wrist and lifts it, hissing in sympathy as he looks at Graves’ mangled fingertips. “Val,” he says helplessly. “Why?”

“I couldn’t stop until it was right. And it wasn’t.”

“When you heal up.” Credence is less bold now, with the urgency of earlier having worn off, but he curls Graves’ fingers loosely into his palm and runs Graves’ nails over his cheek. “Maybe - in a week, or two, when you’re better - maybe -” He swallows, and tucks Graves’ hand under the edge of his jaw. “Maybe... I’ll be better too. I think. I’ll try. And maybe… would you. Would you want. To work on them with me?”

“They’re _your_ songs,” Graves says, “why would you want me to - oh, just to engineer for you? Yes, of course, I’ll do that -”

“No.” Credence tightens his grip on Graves’ hand for a second. “Not just to engineer. I think… they were good when I played them. They’re great when you play them. But… they could be _ours_.” Graves feels Credence’s pulse jump in his throat. “And I think… that might be _amazing_.”

Graves can’t breathe, and it’s got nothing to do with the weight against his chest. Or maybe it has everything to do with the weight against his chest, and the easy, trusting way Credence has once again handed him the most important thing in the world. As though he could possibly merit that - as though he hasn’t _just_ proven the opposite.

“I’m not - I need to sit up,” he says, to cover the panic or at least redirect attention from it. “Sorry -”

And physics has its swift revenge - he sits up too fast for Credence to be able to readjust, with their legs tangled the way they are. Credence topples backwards off the sun lounger, and it’s not far to the ground but it’s far enough that he grabs instinctively for Graves and pulls him off-balance too. The sun lounger tilts - too far -

He lands on top of Credence a second after Credence crashes to the deck, and it knocks the breath out of both of them - so much so that all he can do for a moment is lie there, sprawled over him.

Okay. Okay. His knees sting a little, and his palms and one elbow, but they’re not scraped. He’s jarred his ribs a little, but nothing’s broken and they’re healed enough that they’ll forgive him. Credence is gasping under him, but only from the shock of the fall, not because Graves is crushing him, or he wouldn’t still have both fists full of Graves’ t-shirt. He’d be pushing him off.

Credence is definitely not pushing him off. In fact, Graves thinks - he might be laughing.

And then Graves shifts, trying to get enough leverage to roll off him, and Credence _gasps_ \- a very different kind of gasp, and one that Graves’ cock recognises well before his brain does.

And for half a second his body overrides his good sense, caught up in the intoxication of being touched, and he presses down against the lean muscle of Credence’s leg for the thrill it sends up his spine -

And then he realises what he is doing, and with _whom_ , and exactly how much he _must not_ , and he pushes himself off so hard he almost manages to get fully up on his feet, and staggers back -

\- straight into the pool.

It’s like being backhanded by Poseidon, and entirely deserving it. Everything is _cold_ and _wet_ and a horrible surprise, and he thrashes back to the surface, coughing and spluttering, and goes under again before he can get himself properly righted and under control.

Credence is crouched on the side of the pool looking stricken. “Val! Oh my God, are you okay? I’m so sorry, I didn’t -”

Graves treads water long enough to shove his hair back out of his eyes. He’s an idiot. He’s _such_ an idiot, such a hopeless case, and there’s chlorine in his eyes and his sinuses and the back of his throat. “I’m okay,” he says shortly, and kicks himself over to the ladder so he can climb out, feeling the weight of his own stupidity as much as the water in his clothes. “My own fault. Wasn’t paying attention.”

Luckily, the chilly water has done for whatever trace of excitement might have been visible, along with any he was feeling, but now that he’s sopping wet, with icy rivulets trickling off the cuffs of his jeans, it’s fucking cold out. He’s already shivering. But he can’t go into the house tracking this much water. Ugh. 

His options are - well, there aren’t any, as awkward as this is going to have to be. He sighs, and peels off his t-shirt. “Sorry,” he says, vaguely in Credence’s direction, “look away if you need to.” 

“I didn’t mean to shock you,” Credence says, so quietly he’s not even sure he hears it right.

“You didn’t,” Graves says. The jeans fight him like wet jeans always do, but he wrestles them off as fast as he can, and wrings them out cursorily over the pool so they won’t ruin his carpet. 

He trudges inside, in just his boxers, feeling (or maybe just imagining) Credence’s eyes on his back.

When he dresses again, it’s deliberate: he passes over the worn-soft t-shirts and jeans for a clean, crisp button-down, slacks, and socks. These aren’t Vaal’s clothes, these clothes belong to Percival Graves, and Percival Graves is _responsible_ and is absolutely not, not under any circumstances, going to seduce Credence Barebone. Not now. Not on the heels of all of the upheaval in Credence’s life - he can’t possibly expect Credence to give him anything, not when their relationship is as unbalanced as it already is, and not when Credence is so young and so sheltered and Graves is old and grey and has fucked his way through half of Greater Los Angeles. It’s too much. _He’s_ too much. And he needs too much. He has to wait, and be patient about it, and accept what he’s given gracefully and make it enough; maybe someday it will bloom into what he wants. But not today. 

Today, he needs to remember what it is that actually needs doing, which is not reliving his youth. That’s gone, and clearly better dead, if this morning’s pathetic showing is the best he can do. The world has enough washed-up rockstars. But he can still help Credence, as long as he remembers who he is. He can keep it professional - he’s _fully_ capable of keeping it professional, no matter what his feelings are. That will most certainly be better for everyone.

When he gets back out to the living room, Credence is back in his place on the couch, sitting with that peculiar straightness that means he’s paying extremely close attention to everything he’s not looking directly at. His cheeks are still a little pink, and although Graves is glad to see some colour in them, he’d rather it wasn’t from embarrassment.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Graves says. “Falling on you like that.” He’s not about to be more specific. Ignorance, affected or otherwise, is the only saviour he’s likely to get here.

“It’s okay,” Credence says. “I don’t think that was all your fault.”

Graves nods noncommittally, and leans back against the breakfast bar. It’s the most space he can give Credence without actually putting something between them.

“So,” he says. “I need to ask some questions that you probably don’t want to think about, but if I’m going to be any use to you, I do have to know.”

He watches Credence’s shoulders. They should be trying to creep up around his ears, by the usual standard, but strangely, they’re not. 

“What’s the situation with you and New Salem?”

“Ah.” That’s almost a laugh. “I think I can consider myself… extremely fired. Ma was _quite_ clear. I’m never to set foot in that house again.”

“Good,” Graves says, rather forcefully. “And your contract as Obscurus?”

Credence makes a face. “That, I don’t know. He might be able to hold me to it, though I’d imagine it’ll be hard if I’m not allowed in the Blackwelt building anymore. But I feel like he might try anyway, just for spite.”

Graves nods. “That sounds like the Gel Grindelwald I know. So we’ll have to get you out of it. I can do that. I’m sure I can.”

Privately, he’s not. Grindelwald will fight him at every turn. This won’t be easy. But if it costs him his soul not to, it’s got to be done.

“I think he’ll want to drop me once he reads Mr Scamander’s article,” Credence says quietly. “I’m going to do it, you know. I called your office this morning - on the landline in your study. I talked to Miss Queenie. I knew, if she’s your assistant, that she’d be able to get a message to him. I… did a lot of thinking, this morning, while you were downstairs, and…” He looks squarely at Graves. “I want to be the last person he gets to hurt. No more, after me. I don’t care what I have to admit. If it’s enough to tell the truth of who he is - I can do that.”

For a moment, Graves is completely without words. All he has is this welling-up of nearly unbearable pride.

“You know it won’t necessarily be easy,” he says eventually. “Newt won’t be hard on you, but if it gets out that you were one of his sources - it could hurt your career. A lot.”

Credence shakes his head. “It won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Credence stands up from the couch, and comes close enough that Graves could reach out, could pull him into a hug, could press him to the place in his chest that hurts when he looks at him for too long - he won’t, but he _could_. And Credence smiles.

“You won’t let it,” he says simply.

It’s not _up_ to him, it’ll never be all up to him, and he can’t make any promises that big, but Graves folds onto one of the barstools and watches Credence busy himself with the tiny mundanities of a glass of juice, and loves him and despairs.

\---

They spend the afternoon in relative silence, on the couch, watching _Blazing Saddles_. It’s comfortable: they are at opposite ends, and Graves has given Credence the end closer to the television, so that he has to look past him to see what Gene Wilder is doing. It doesn’t matter. Graves could probably recite most of the dialogue. He’d rather look at Credence.

By the time the sun starts setting, they’ve moved on to _Arsenic and Old Lace_ , and Graves lets Credence stay on the couch while he makes dinner. But when he gets out the chopping board and starts trying to work out how to manage a knife around all his blisters, Credence pauses the movie; before Graves knows it, he’s being very gently pushed aside, with a warm hand on his elbow. “Let me.”

It’s faster with two sets of hands. And it’s strange, having anyone else in his kitchen, but Credence brushes up against him, reaching for things, with the edges of arms and hips and shoulders. It feels like the prelude to something that might be too much, but by itself… it’s all right. He can have this. This isn’t anything too scary or too challenging. It’s just dinner, just a bunch of vegetables being reduced to neat, even slices and thrown in a pan with spices and hot oil, just a glass bowl full of soaked-tender noodles, just Credence reaching around him with the length of his arm pressed so carefully to Graves’ ribs where they were broken and should hurt, and don’t.

They spoon the food out onto plates and eat standing at the breakfast bar, shoulder to shoulder, unexpectedly ravenous. Graves thinks it’s the first time in - a very long time, maybe ever, that he’s seen Credence eat as though he really understands that there is more, if he needs it. That he doesn’t have to deny himself anything to make anyone else happy.

The denial, it seems, will fall entirely to Graves.

Graves looks at Credence’s steam-rosy cheeks, and thinks: he doesn’t know how he will sleep tonight, without Credence lying next to him.

And thinks: he has gone so long alone before Credence, surely this should be nothing.

And thinks: of course that doesn’t make a difference.

And thinks: he could kiss Credence, now, and Credence would let him.

Credence is looking at him like he might be thinking the same. Like he might not want Graves to stop - 

They both jump half out of their skins when Graves’ cellphone rings.

He grabs for it before it buzzes itself right off the edge of the countertop. “Hello?”

“Graves. Listen.” It’s - it’s Tina, but he’s never heard her sound quite so determinedly bloodthirsty. “If you have any objections to grand larceny, or any prior convictions that mean you can’t get busted holding stolen property, I need to know right now.”

“... _What?_ ” He squints at the phone. “Goldstein, what have you done?”

There’s an engine coming up the street, in a hell of a hurry. “Just answer the question,” Tina says tightly.

He grabs a handful of his own hair. “No - no priors, and honestly, that wasn’t even a question - now tell me what you did.”

Brakes squeak in his driveway, and doors slam, in stereo from outside and over the phone. “You’re sure you want to know?” Tina says.

“I get the feeling I’m about to either way,” Graves says, because he can hear the key in the lock, and there’s only one person who has a key to his front door right now apart from himself.

“Mr Graves?” Queenie calls, up the stairs, and he’s definitely in trouble if she’s calling him that. “Are you up here?”

“We’re in the kitchen.” Graves ends the call, and sets the phone down.

“Oh, Credence is with you? That’s perfect.” Queenie’s feet are light on the steps. “Tina, come on up!”

“ _Why_ is it perfect?” Graves asks wearily.

“Well. Funny story,” Queenie says, as she comes into view.

A bag dangles from her hand, an unassuming black duffel, but beside him, Credence stiffens.

“We may have been. Visiting some folks. And I may have been given a present or two that miiiiight not have been strictly above-board, and we might have had to move pretty fast to get out of there before anyone spotted us, but -” Queenie shrugs theatrically, and steps aside.

Tina stands at the top of the stairs, looking deeply stressed. There’s a large, lumpy, cloth-wrapped object in her arms.

And over her shoulder, in its black gig bag, is Credence’s guitar.

Instinct makes Graves grab for Credence, fractions of a second before Credence’s knees go out on him; he gets his feet under him again almost immediately, but he’s white as paper and staring at Tina like she can’t be real. 

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Queenie says soothingly, which had better be directed at Credence. “I guess we should explain.”

“I’d like that,” Graves says. “Sit down. I’m sure this is going to take awhile.”

He shepherds a very wobbly Credence over to the couch, wedging him neatly between the padded arm and his own side. Tina sets the swaddled thing on the coffee table, but then bites her lip, swings the guitar off her back and holds it out to Credence. “Here,” she says.

Credence takes it onto his lap and wraps both arms around it. He rocks it gently, like a child, its neck against his own; Graves can feel him shaking. He squeezes Credence’s knee. 

“So. Tell me exactly what happened,” he says, so they’ll look at him instead of Credence. 

“Well,” Queenie says. “I got an interesting phone call early this morning, from Credence’s little sister. I gave her my own cellphone number on Wednesday - I had a feeling she might want it. Seems she had a fight with the older one, and it came out exactly why Credence wasn’t coming home. And that Mrs Barebone had told Chastity that Credence was staying with a friend. Although I don’t think that’s how she would have put it. She says to me, ‘You’re the only friend he has. Is it you?’” She smiles to soften the blow. “I told her no, you had better friends than me.”

Credence leans into Graves’ side. His voice is thick. “You are a good friend, Miss Queenie. Really. And you too, Miss Tina.”

“Thank you,” Queenie says warmly. “But anyway, she said she got mad about it, it didn’t seem right, and she’d noticed that all of your things were still in the cupboard and wondered if you needed some of them. So she snuck around after everyone was asleep and packed up as much as she could for you. And she said we should come tonight if we could, and get the things, because she wasn’t sure how long she could hide it all for. And then _you_ called, and I guess I’m a meddler but after I talked to you I thought - I just had to do this. You were gonna be so brave, you deserved something good to happen to you.”

“She roped me in,” Tina says, “so that she could go in and have a nice little chat with Chastity, tea and cookies, while I snuck round the back and met Modesty skulking in the backyard. We ran over to the church - I can't remember the last time I jumped a fence - and Modesty got me into the equipment room, and there was the bag - sitting right next to your guitar and your pedalboard. And I looked at her, and she just goes ‘Take it. All of it. He’ll be lonely for his guitar, I know he will.’”

Credence hugs the guitar even tighter, hunching over it until it must be digging into his chest. Nobody comments on how quickly he wipes his eyes. 

“And then we snuck Modesty back in and I hid in the back seat of the car with the guitar, under a blanket, until Queenie came back,” Tina concludes, “which would have been much less dramatic if you hadn’t waited until Mary Lou was _actually home_.” She glares at her sister. 

“I had to,” Queenie says. “That way she’d know it was nothing to do with me, since I’d been there the whole time, talking to Chastity about whether it was really a sin to laugh in church if it was because you felt so happy that God loved you. By the way, it is _hard_ to come up with complicated theological questions on two minutes’ notice.” She shrugs. “Anyway, you got out all right.”

“And then you nearly killed us driving here,” Tina grumbles.

Queenie grins. “I was excited. I never stole anything before.”

Graves feels Credence take a very deep breath. “Miss Tina? Miss Queenie?” He slides the guitar off his lap to lean against the couch, and stands, wavering. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough.”

“Aww, honey, it’s nothing,” Queenie says, getting up from her own chair to take his hands. 

“No.” Credence is fighting the tears, but he’s losing very badly. “It’s _everything_ -”

“Oh, c’mere,” Queenie says gently, and folds him into her arms. “You too, Teenie, you did just as much as me.”

Tina stands, and awkwardly joins the hug, covering about half of Credence’s back.

“Sweetheart.” Queenie’s got Credence’s head on her shoulder now. Graves is only faintly surprised. He’d probably have hugged Queenie a lot more himself if she weren’t his admin. She’s soft and warm and very easy to be so close to, and Credence can’t have had many hugs like that in his life.

But when he pulls away, she lets him go, and Graves knows that face, knows he’s inches away from shattering completely. 

“Excuse me,” Credence whispers, and flees for the sanctuary of the guest room.

Graves considers going after him for far longer than he should. He hates the idea that Credence is alone, even if he wants to be. But then he realises Queenie and Tina are both watching him.

“Sorry,” he says. “Woolgathering. It’s been a long day.”

Queenie clearly isn’t fooled. “So. Are you two okay?”

“Okay, in what sense?” Graves makes himself sit up and not cross his arms over his chest. “I’m fine. He’s doing better. Maybe now that he has his guitar he’ll feel like playing, which I think would be good. He has this idea that we should collaborate, which is ludicrous, I’m not half the musician he is - but I’m sure that’s just because his confidence was shaken and he thinks he needs the help. He doesn’t, and I’m no help anyway.”

“ _Or_ maybe he really likes you,” Queenie says. 

Graves is very aware of the depth and gravity of his unconvinced face. “Maybe.”

Queenie frowns at him. “Don’t you want him to?”

“You know that doesn’t matter,” Graves says. He stares at his fingertips. 

Tina peers sharply at his hands. “Hang on. What on earth did you do to your fingers? Jesus. That looks _awful_.”

“I was recording. Or trying to.” Graves sighs. “He had all these songs, and his mother destroyed all the tapes. But I’d heard them, so I thought I could maybe approximate them. Stupid idea. This is how I know we shouldn’t collaborate.”

“But he wants to. And he’s heard the tapes?” Tina is clearly weighing something in her head. That’s the look she always gets just before she gets herself into trouble. “So… you’ll flay your own hands nearly to the bone for him, you’ll take a beating that puts you in the hospital for him, you’ll take him in and give him food and shelter and - and _care_ , but you won’t let him give you anything back?” Her eyes are narrowing.

“They’re just songs,” Graves says tiredly. “It’s not like he’s offering me millions.”

“He doesn’t _have_ millions,” Tina snaps. “But he has songs. And he’s trying to give them to you.”

He doesn’t understand. She’s visibly seething, and he has no idea why. “Trust me, he’d be better off keeping them to himself.”

“That’s _not the point_ ,” she nearly spits.

“Teenie,” Queenie says, a soft warning, but Tina shakes her head.

“No, I’m gonna say it, I don’t care. You don’t know, Graves, and you’re a smart man, and you’ve saved me a lot of times, so just this once I’m going to save you, because you can’t see what you’re doing.” She stares him down. “But here is what you’re doing. He is trying to give you his songs, because they’re the best thing he has. Maybe the only thing he has, but certainly the most precious to him, and he knows you know the value of them. And you won’t fucking take them, out of some sort of nobility or humility or psychological complex, because you think you’ll ruin everything.” She shakes her head hard enough that her hair fluffs slightly. “For fuck’s sake, Graves. You _obviously_ love him, given how shit scared you are to ruin his career by getting your dirty hands on it, or whatever it is you think is going to happen. You’re clinging to this façade of professionalism and detachment, but it’s not real, or you wouldn’t be trying so hard and acting so miserable about it. You’d just _be_ professional. I get that it’s critical to you that he succeeds - I really do. And I care about him too. So fine.” She takes a deep breath. “ _I’ll_ sign him. I’ll sign you _both_ , as a single act, if he’s right about the collaboration, which I’m sure he _is_. I believe everything you’ve told me about how great he is and how much of a coup it would be for the label, so it’ll be worth it, and it’ll be good for my career in the long term, and I will deal with the fallout from my budget overruns in the short term, and I will find the lawyers that will get him free and take all your advice on how best to handle everything - and you will _get the fuck over yourself and kiss him_.”

For a moment, Graves gapes at her, standing there with her fists at her sides and her eyes glittering with frustration. She’s terrifying. She’s _magnificent_.

And then, behind her, Credence steps around the corner.

Instantly, Graves can see in his face that he’s heard everything.

Credence has long ago mastered the art of keeping what he’s thinking locked away behind a mostly neutral expression, and it’s fucking _killing_ Graves that all he can read is that Credence is so upset by what he’s just heard and so scared of what he’s about to walk into that he’s blanked his face.

That’s how he looks at _Mary Lou_ , not how he should look at Graves, not how he should _ever_ look at Graves, and Graves can’t stand it.

“Credence,” he says, “I’m sorry -”

“Is it true,” Credence says, over him, and Credence has never done that, never - “Is it _true_ , Val.”

“Is what true?” He knows he’s stalling.

Credence knows it too, by the banked fire in his eyes. “What she said.” He clenches, then unclenches his fists. “That you _love_ me. And you’re trying not to.”

His chest aches. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Will her plan work.” Credence’s affect is flat, but like a blade is flat.

“ _Yes_ ,” Tina says.

“Val. _Will it work._ ” Credence’s shoulders are braced for a blow. 

“Maybe?” He stares at Credence, feeling helpless to a degree he can’t remember in the last ten years. “Maybe. I don’t know. Probably.”

“Well then. I think it matters a lot.” Five strides, and Credence stops, close enough for Graves to touch if he thought he could. “Doesn’t it? If you love me?”

“Credence…” Graves bites his lower lip until he’s sure he can taste blood. “I can’t. I can’t ruin this for you. I’m not... who I’d need to be.”

Credence blinks, slow like a predator. Then he nods. “I understand.”

“ _I_ don’t,” Graves says.

And for just a second, there’s a flash of a smile at the corner of Credence’s mouth. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry if I’m not very good at this.”

Graves is suddenly seized, his face pinned between Credence’s palms, held still - and Credence fits his mouth carefully onto Graves’.

It’s unstudied, inexperienced - it’s warm, it’s gentle - it’s -

Over, because Credence has pulled back, and is looking at him. “You already are exactly who I need you to be, you always have been. And you haven’t ruined anything,” he says softly. “But if you don’t kiss me back right now, you might.”

To his dying day, Graves will never admit to having made the little whimpering noise at the back of his throat.

So he kisses Credence back, to distract him from it. And then again, because he’s got Credence’s jaw cupped in his hands, and Credence has slid his arms around Graves’ neck, and again, because Credence is leaning into him, and again, because he needs to.

Credence shivers, and oh, he’s - nipping at Graves’ upper lip and pressing his hips into Graves’ so gently but so insistently, and where the fuck did he learn to do that, and can he do it _forever_ -

“Come on, Teenie,” he hears, very quietly. “Leave ‘em to it. I think they have everything under control. We’ll sort out the details in the morning.”

Graves is a master of self-restraint and willpower; he manages to wait until he hears the front door click before he’s pushing Credence up against the wall.

“Is this okay?” he pants, against Credence’s neck.

“Only if you don’t stop there,” Credence says, “ _please_ , Val -”

He doesn’t.

He _knew_ there was a reason he’d bought such nice thick carpets.

\---  
\---

**_THE DARK WIZARD OF BLACKWELT_ **   
**_reporting by Newt Scamander_ **

_The young man on the telephone with me is quiet._

_“On some level, I knew,” he tells me. “There was something in his eyes that didn’t match up to the rest of what he was saying. But I also knew he had me over a barrel, one way or the other, so I just chalked it up to that - that he knew he’d won.”_

_It’s a story I’ve heard over and over in the last fortnight, so often that I almost feel I could recite the beats of it myself. The men who speak to me vary in age, from well into their forties down to their early twenties, but some of them merely have to reach back farther to remember that look of triumph, and what would soon follow after._

_In every business, there are people best avoided - the spiders lurking under rocks. Sometimes their nests are signposted, but there are always those who are too crafty to leave traces, or too slippery to be caught at anything before it is too late and all that can be done is to reconstruct from the evidence of those who have fallen. And if they cannot speak, the spider lives, and waits, and strikes._

_The music industry is known for the persistence of its spiders. There is a centuries-long tradition of the Svengali, more so than in most of the entertainment fields, and their possibly noxious effect on their vulnerable protégés is well-documented - but then the hit records appear, and the money pours in, and the photo shoots show smiling faces, and really, it can’t be all that bad, can it?_

_“I happened to be in London, and I got asked to do some press things with a band who had just broken their contract with Blackwelt,” recalls Sylvester (names and some details have been edited for reasons of privacy). “They were known to be lovely blokes, all of them, and I had a grand time in the interview, right up until we had a break, and then one of them pulled me aside. ‘Is he touching you,’ he asked me - and I didn’t know how he could possibly have known that. I thought that I’d managed to keep everything very discreet, because of course, I didn’t want it known - didn’t want it assumed; I was very early into a career that I knew was based terribly heavily on my looks and my appeal, and of course someone might think I’d slept my way to the top of the charts. I was so horrified that I said some absolutely awful things and refused to do any further press with them, because how did they know, you know? And I didn’t talk to them again for a couple of years. Not until I realised that of course, they knew because he was always the same. They’d only been trying to help.”_

_I hear the same thing from Paul, and from Harvey, and from Nathan. And every time, at the centre of the sticky web of lies and suggestions and coercion and outright blackmail, the same spider, hopping from Berlin to London to New York to Los Angeles in search of the freshest and most vulnerable prey._

_There are conflicting reports about how Gellert Grindelwald got his start in the music business. What everyone can agree on is this: he started out powerful, and with every clever career move and inspired artist pick, he became more and more so. Eventually he struck out on his own, finding that no existing label could support the breadth of his vision. And at Blackwelt, with no supervision to speak of, he perfected his sinister business model: Find an act with something to prove, and as large an Achilles’ heel as possible. For Alan, it was his addiction to prescription painkillers; for Harvey, it was debts of thousands of dollars; for Simon, it was an abusive relationship with a controlling manager. Once their weakness was established, he would offer salvation, or what seemed like it. And the cost was so small, so easily rationalised._

**_Just a kiss, my boy. Just a touch. You know how special you are to me..._ **

\---  
\---

“I like it,” Graves says. “I do. I didn’t think I would, but I do.”

Credence, at his side, has the delicacy not to say _I told you so_ out loud, but he’s radiating such smug delight that Graves has to grab him by the elbow and tug him off balance, under the guise of making him lean in to look closer. 

“Did you see,” he says, “how all the tombstones on the hill have little devils on them?”

“Um. I actually suggested that.” Credence looks over his shoulder. “And also the black cloud over them, blotting out the sky.”

“Oh. Well…” He feels Credence chuckling. “It’s good. The typeface was definitely my call, though. And correct.” Graves strokes the elegant silver gothic lettering that spells out _BARREN VALLEY_.

Credence leans his chin on Graves’ shoulder. “Yes. That’s great, Val, I love it.”

“It’s gonna look really good on the t-shirts,” Tina says cheerfully, sliding a shirt mockup onto the easel overtop of the album cover. “The traditional black, with the name in greyscale screenprint, and then we were thinking maybe a white version with the smoke cloud graphic. Tour dates on the back when we get that far.”

“I talked to Jeff about hosting the album release party,” Graves says. “He’s willing to do it provided we handle setup and strike, all load-in and load-out, and we don’t complain that there’s no wine list.”

Tina raises an eyebrow. “You have a list of venues as long as your arm, why are you so determined to choose the one with the tiniest possible backstage? And carpets that try to eat your shoes?”

“They know us there,” Graves says, and squeezes Credence’s hand. “We have history there. And the venue rental fee doesn’t really cover the least of what I owe Jeff. Besides, the carpets add to the atmosphere.”

“Well, all right,” Tina says dubiously. “I’ll tell Sera. I’m sure we can dress it up a little. At least it’s cheaper and easier than the Viper Room.”

Graves grins at her, a Vaal grin, all pointy teeth and sparkle. “That’s me. Cheaper and easier than the competition.”

“If only that were true,” Tina sighs. Sera still hasn’t totally forgiven either of them for the contract payout to Blackwelt, even though the court case had certainly made it a more palatable sum. Graves doesn’t care. He’d have paid it out of his own pocket just for the look on Credence’s face when he’d walked out a free man.

“You are pretty easy,” Credence says thoughtfully, with a flawless deadpan.

Graves marvels. Two months ago Credence wouldn’t have been able to _think_ that without blushing, but… this is the guy he’d had perched on his desk when Abernathy had walked in on Monday, and Credence had broken the kiss and looked over Graves’ shoulder and said “We’re _busy_ ,” so clearly living with Graves has ruined him irredeemably. 

He does know that Queenie had won a hundred dollars off Abernathy for it, but at least she’ll finally get her handbag. And Credence had just gone back to kissing him, which he is getting far too good at, so there really hadn’t been any losers, apart from Abernathy, who should honestly have known better than to bet against a Goldstein.

“Not my fault,” Graves says. “It seems my boyfriend is a force of nature, and neither the sky nor the highest heaven can contain him.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Credence says mildly, but he says it against the corner of Graves’ mouth, so Graves is fairly sure he doesn’t mind.

“Excuse me,” Tina says. “Can you not make out in my office right now? Or ever?”

“This is all your fault,” Graves informs her blithely. “This whole thing - every bit of it - _all_ your fault. Deal with the consequences.”

“Val,” Credence whispers. “I have a better idea. Let’s go home. And maybe when we get there... you can practise your blasphemy some more.”

“Hallelujah,” Graves breathes, and Credence smiles like a sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for taking this journey with me.
> 
> if anyone is interested in knowing more about the musical DNA of this fic, i invite you to check out the official shadowplay playlist [here on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrFGhOYqfUyzO-b0g4uCCTtkmJ4OBA2v6). 
> 
> it's a slightly bonkers mix containing everything from the john 5 and buckethead tracks that gave me obscurus' sound, to the iron maiden and judas priest that i drew on for deviltomb, to new salem's "partridge family bullshit" and the manic drive track that started this whole idea in early march when i heard it on the radio and went WHAT IF THE BAREBONES HAD A FAMILY BAND. because i just can't keep my fingers out of anything. 
> 
> turn it up loud. <3

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://acroamatica.tumblr.com). but talk loud, i'm pretty deaf after all the iron maiden i listened to to get this stuff cooking. :D


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